Perplexity's Interest in Google Chrome

• Perplexity made a proposal to acquire Chrome for $34.5 billion.
• Chrome is critically important for Google’s advertising business.
• The loss of Chrome could threaten Google’s future in the market.

In September 2024, the large internet giant Alphabet faced the largest antitrust lawsuit, when a U.S. court found that its subsidiary Google unlawfully monopolized the search market. The court ordered that it pay $26.3 billion, which Google earned from other companies for establishing its search engine as the standard, blocking opportunities for competitors.

In response to this, the U.S. Department of Justice is pushing to force Google to sell its Chrome browser. According to Reuters, several companies, including OpenAI, Yahoo, and Apollo Global Management, expressed interest in acquiring Chrome. However, the startup in the artificial intelligence sector, Perplexity, made a proposal to acquire Chrome for $34.5 billion on September 12, 2025, which more than doubles its own valuation.

Chrome is critically important for Google’s business, as over 60% of internet users use this browser for searching. In 2023, Alphabet generated over $230 billion in revenue from advertising, a significant portion of which depends on data collected through Chrome. The loss of Chrome could severely undermine Google’s advertising model, as the new owner of the browser could change the standard search engine, leading to a decrease in the number of queries directed to Google.

Experts believe that the value of Chrome to Google cannot be measured solely in monetary terms, as it is a key element of the company’s ecosystem. Without Chrome, Google could lose access to 3.5 billion users and valuable data, which would significantly hinder its operations in a competitive environment. The emergence of new owners could also threaten integrations with other Google products, such as Gmail and Google Workspace.

In the course of the antitrust investigations, a real threat emerges for Google, as regulators are putting pressure on the company. If Google is forced to sell Chrome, this could lead to significant changes in its business model and competition in the market.

Tags: USA/Technology