New Delhi: Aravind Srinivas, CEO of Perplexity, once again made a statement, where he is once again promoting the company’s newly launched Comet AI browser to end Google’s dominance on the internet. On the X platform, the CEO of a startup has shared a short clip of the latest Comet browser that Perplexity launched last month, and he also wrote that, “The Internet is too important to be left in Google’s hands.” This comes after the company offered to buy the popular Chrome browser from Google for $34.5 billion. Perplexity launched its own AI-powered browser, Comet, to rival Google’s Chrome. This AI-based web browser is built on the Chromium open-source framework and claims to offer users a familiar experience with the browser.
Perplexity submitted an unsolicited $34.5 billion all-in-cash offer to acquire Google’s Chrome browser. The three-year-old startup confirmed it sent the formal bid to Google, despite being valued at $18 billion itself. Now, if we discuss Chrome, it has approximately over 3 billion users globally, which would have been a notable asset for Perplexity in the competition for AI-powered search dominance. Perplexity $34.5 billion proposal included commitments to address regulatory and user concerns. The company plans to invest around $3 billion over two years in Chrome development and infrastructure, maintain Chromium as an open source, and leave Chrome’s default search settings unchanged.
This offer came at a time when the US Department of Justice was seeking to force Google to sell Chrome after the judge ruled that the company held an illegal monopoly in internet search. At that time, DOJ argued that divesting Chrome would prevent Google from controlling a key access point to search and open opportunities for rival engines.
If we discuss the last month’s scene, Perplexity unveils its own AI-Browser Comet, which is built on the Chromium framework, it supports Chrome extensions and bookmarks while adding AI-based tools for productivity, research, and task management. Comet includes an AI sidebar assistant that can summarise articles, draft emails, manage schedules, and automate tasks directly within the browser. It also unveils workspaces for organising tabs and projects, personalised recommendations, and features like email prioritisation, content generation, and real-time fact-checking.
