Perplexity AI says it wants to buy Google Chrome for $34.5 billion. That number is audacious, the timing is surgical, and the implications are enormous. Chrome is the front door to the modern web, with billions of people walking through it every day. A young AI search company is now trying to take the keys.
The offer arrived as the U.S. Justice Department seeks remedies in its search monopoly case against Google, including a proposal that Google divest Chrome. Perplexity’s letter to Alphabet’s CEO framed the bid as a public interest solution, and the company says outside investors are ready to help fund it. Google has not put Chrome up for sale and is appealing the antitrust ruling, which makes this a long shot, but a revealing one about where the web is going and who wants to run it. Multiple outlets have confirmed the unsolicited bid and the antitrust context, including The New York Times, Reuters, CNBC, and the BBC, which also noted skepticism from investors about the offer’s valuation and viability. See coverage from the New York Times, Reuters, CNBC, and the BBC for the latest reporting.
Why Chrome is the prize everyone wants
Chrome is not just a browser. It is distribution, defaults, and data, all bundled into a familiar icon on the desktop. Owning Chrome means owning the channel through which search queries begin, which is why the Justice Department zeroed in on it in the first place. If you control the browser, you influence the default search engine, the telemetry that informs ranking and ads, and the feature surface where AI “answers” are now replacing ten blue links.
Perplexity’s bid is a recognition that the AI search race is not only about better models, it is about distribution. The company launched its own browser, Comet, but a challenger browser is a long climb. Chrome is a helicopter ride to the summit.
The politics of browser ownership
Regulators want structural fixes that prevent Google from bottling up the next era of search with the same tactics that fortified the last one. Forcing a Chrome divestiture would create an independent gateway for rivals. Google argues that such a remedy would harm users and security, and it is fighting the scope of the proposed fixes.
Even if a court ordered a sale, the buyer list would trigger scrutiny of its own. A purchase by another hyperscaler would raise the same concentration worries. A startup buyer backed by financial sponsors sounds cleaner, yet the money behind the money matters. If the investors are strategic in disguise, the remedy collapses in practice.
What Perplexity is signaling
Perplexity says it would keep Google as the default search engine in Chrome, maintain Chromium as open source, and invest heavily in the product. That is an olive branch to regulators and a reassurance to users. It also reads as a tactical bet. In the near term, keeping Google as the default avoids immediate user revolt and technical risk. Over time, Perplexity could win distribution for its answer engine on merit, not mandate.
Skeptics point out that $34.5 billion is likely far below Chrome’s true strategic value. The number may be less about closing a deal and more about setting the floor if a court orders divestiture and an auction follows. It also places Perplexity in the conversation alongside bigger suitors who have reportedly kicked the tires and have their own distribution ambitions.
What happens next, realistically
Several paths are plausible, and only one of them ends with Perplexity owning Chrome soon.
First, the legal clock. The remedies phase in the Google case will determine whether a Chrome divestiture is ordered at all. Appeals could stretch this for years. That timeline alone makes an immediate sale unlikely.
Second, the auction scenario. If the court does force a divestiture, expect a structured process with guardrails. The buyer will need to satisfy capital, governance, security, and open web commitments. It would be a global review, which brings in European and other regulators who have their own views on browser interoperability and default choice screens.
Third, the status quo tweak. The court could stop short of a sale and instead impose behavioral remedies. That could mean stricter default choice screens, ad and data sharing obligations with rivals, and limits on how Chrome integrates with Gemini and other Google services. Distribution would be more open, without blasting apart the browser from the business.
The user experience risk no one should gloss over
Chrome’s success is partly a product story. People trust its speed, extensions, sync, and security patch cadence. Moving that apparatus to new ownership without breaking it is nontrivial. Security response times, extension compatibility, enterprise policies, and Chromium stewardship need continuity. If users sense drift or risk, they will defect to Safari, Edge, or Firefox. The value of Chrome is as much the habit loop as the codebase.
There is also the AI overlay. The future browser is an agent that reads the page with you, blocks deceptive design patterns, summarizes, cites, and brokers your identity and payments. Whoever runs Chrome will sit in the cockpit for that evolution. Designing that agent to be open, privacy preserving, and accountable is not a side quest. It is the whole job.
If not Perplexity, who and what would change
If a sale ever becomes real, expect interest from multiple directions. Microsoft would face immediate antitrust headwinds. OpenAI would invite similar resistance, and would be tethered to Microsoft regardless. Private equity could propose a neutral steward model, committing to default choice screens that are fair and audited, and to a Chromium foundation with real independence. Apple is unlikely, both strategically and regulatorily, to chase a cross‑platform browser it cannot fully control.
Under any new owner, several changes feel likely. Default choice could become a true first‑run moment everywhere, not just in the EU. Ad tech tie‑ins would be unbundled, with a published interface for search and ads so rivals can compete for the browser’s traffic. The privacy roadmap would get a reboot, balancing anti‑tracking with competition so that Privacy Sandbox does not pick winners by design. And AI features would become pluggable, so users can select their preferred answer engine the way they pick a default search provider.
The uncomfortable truth for Google and everyone else
The bid underscores a simple lesson. In AI, distribution is the moat. The teams training frontier models will keep raising billions, but the gatekeepers to user attention are browsers, operating systems, keyboards, and assistants. If regulators make one big move in this cycle, separating a distribution layer from a dominant service is the lever with the largest multiplier. Chrome sits exactly at that lever point.
Even if nothing changes hands, Perplexity has succeeded in reframing the conversation. It is no longer just a question of whether Google must change search. It is now a live debate about who should own the browser that decides how search begins.
The bottom line
Perplexity’s offer is a provocation wrapped in a proposal. It may never close, but it surfaces the right questions about defaults, neutrality, and the next interface of the web. If courts force divestiture, a neutral, well‑capitalized steward with hard commitments to open governance and user choice would serve the public interest. If courts opt for softer remedies, they should still harden the default choice regime and require audited openness for AI features inside Chrome.
What happens to one icon on your dock could decide who answers your questions for the next decade.