AI startup Perplexity has made a $34.5 billion bid to acquire Google Chrome from Alphabet. The offer, deemed unlikely to succeed by some analysts, comes amidst antitrust scrutiny of Google. Perplexity argues the move would benefit users by creating an independent operator focused on safety, while maintaining Google as the default search engine. Google has not commented on the bid, stating it would appeal any ruling forcing a breakup of its search business. Perplexity, recently valued at $18 billion, has also made headlines for previous acquisition bids.

Prepared by Jonathan Pierce and reviewed by editorial team.