Perplexity are trying to find their place so they try whatever they can. Web search, shopping search, finance search, browser, deep research, anything. They were first to do a good job on web search but ChatGPT and Claude caught up and now Perplexity, who doesn't have their own family of models like the other two, is shooting in the dark.
Perplexity Makes Longshot $34.5B Offer for Chrome
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Re: Perplexity Makes Longshot $34.5B Offer for Chrome
#42Re: Perplexity Makes Longshot $34.5B Offer for Chrome
#43Re: Perplexity Makes Longshot $34.5B Offer for Chrome
#44If there was any company that I would trust less with a web browser (and related user data) than an ad-tech company, it would be an AI company.
A social media ad company would be the least favourable. At least Google's central ad business is based off of search queries the user gives to them willingly for value.
They have no lack of attempts to change their central business into a social media ad company, tough. They just failed.
Re: Perplexity Makes Longshot $34.5B Offer for Chrome
#45For the simple minded among us, can someone explain why this would be worth 34.5 billion dollars? Wouldn't the fork ( https://www.perplexity.ai/comet ) be sufficient?
If they buy Chrome, they can change the default search on a web browser used by half the planet.
Re: Perplexity Makes Longshot $34.5B Offer for Chrome
#46These marketing stunts from Perplexity made me stop using their product. For me, it's an indicator that they don't believe in their product, so there's no reason for me to do it either.
Which web search do you prefer over perplexity?
https://search.brave.com
Both Kagi and Perplexity are customers of Brave, btw. See https://brave.com/api or just ask if you have questions. Will answer what I can for anyone curious.
Re: Perplexity Makes Longshot $34.5B Offer for Chrome
#47NAL, but IMO it's legal & political maneuvering. DOJ asked Judge Mehta to consider forcing divestiture of Chrome after Google was found to illegally maintained a search monopoly. If it's determined the divestiture is feasible, especially with an existing more-or-less "credible buyer" at the ready, it looks executable. The offer is basically crafted to fit the DOJ/regulator concerns, ie everything is build around "lea…
Unless Google is banned from providing a browser entirely, they'll just re-fork Webkit and release another browser, and it will very quickly replace Chrome usage.
Especially on Android - which is the most used OS in the world.
It seems strange to ban Google from offering a Search Engine, when all the other big tech companies can get into any field just fine, but the legal system is primarily a weapon for corruption these days, so who knows.
I mean, sure, if you want to start limiting what big companies do, and there's some fairness in how it's applied, fine.
But that's not what will happen.
Re: Perplexity Makes Longshot $34.5B Offer for Chrome
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
[flagged]
Source for this? I would be crestfallen because Kagi has been such a good product for me for the past year or so.
Going to assume this is about their partnership with Yandex for image searching.
Quick Google results:
https://ounapuu.ee/posts/2025/07/17/kagi/
https://www.reddit.com/r/ukraine/comments/1gvcqua/psa_the_ka...
Re: Perplexity Makes Longshot $34.5B Offer for Chrome
#49If they think it's worth that much, ask yourself about how they plan to profit from it.
Imagine a browser (or any tech) that delivers seamless and undisclosed advertising and narrative through conversational interface. Why wouldn't that be an endgame of LLMs?
Re: Perplexity Makes Longshot $34.5B Offer for Chrome
#50A $14B to $18B dollar company offering an all stock deal worth about 2x as much as its market cap.
This isn't a serious offer, its a publicity stunt. Google would effectively own the entire company short of some mind blowing multiple expansion here.
Watch for Perplexity to be raising money in the next 6 months. But given this stunt it looks like they think their growth is over and they've peaked as a company.