Controversial AI outfit Perplexity puts in speculative $34.5 billion bid for the Chrome browser, but Google never said it was selling

It feels inevitable that Google will eventually be forced spin off its Chrome web-browser and sell it to the highest bidder. There are just too many concerns over the influence Chrome has regarding Google's stranglehold on web search. But the company's hand has not yet been forced to do so, and you might not have expected AI outfit Perplexity to be the first to put in what seems like a serious offer nonetheless, to the tune of $34.5 billion.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Perplexity put the bid in earlier today, backed by venture capital funding. Google has declined to comment on the offer, but the additional context here is the ongoing legal proceedings regarding Google's monopoly in the search market which include considering whether the company should be forced to sell off Chrome.

Indeed, Perplexity itself calls out the antitrust proceedings in its offer, which it says is, "designed to satisfy an antitrust remedy in highest public interest by placing Chrome with a capable, independent operator."

Funnily enough, Perplexity has its own browser, known as Comet. Perplexity says it would continue to support Chromium, the open source browser kernel that underpins Chrome itself and a wide range of other browsers, including Microsoft's Edge.

Of course, one immediate question is whether a company like Perplexity can be trusted with a software platform as important as Chrome, which the Wall Street Journal says currently has 3.5 billion users and owns roughly 60% of the global browser market.

At best, Perplexity's reputation among major AI players isn't exactly exemplary. Cloudflare recently claimed, just as a for instance, that Perplexity is guilty of using "stealth, undeclared crawlers to evade website no-crawl directives." Other major media outlets including Forbes have accused Perplexity of stealing content, too.

Anyway, the Perplexity offer very much feels like an opening gambit in what could turn out to be a bidding war. Putting a value on a platform like Chrome is tricky. Perplexity itself says it values Chrome at just $18 billion, while other estimates straddle a range from $20 billion to $50 billion.

Thus far, Google hasn't shown any appetite for divesting itself of Chrome, instead arguing that forcing a sale would harm Google’s business, discourage it from investing in new technology and open the door to various security risks. But watch this space. While it seems unlikely that Perplexity's bid will succeed, this almost certainly isn't the last we'll hear about the possibility of Google offloading Chrome.