Search.com has entered the race to amass Google Chrome, topping Perplexity AI’s $34.5 billion bid with a $35 billion counteroffer backed by JPMorgan Chase and a consortium of personal fairness corporations.
The $500 million transfer intensifies a high-stakes battle over the way forward for net shopping and AI search, as extra challengers place themselves to take management of the world’s most-used browser.
“We see this as each offense and protection,” Melissa Anderson, president of Public Good, which owns Search.com, informed Decrypt. “Buying Chrome offers us the dimensions to speed up adoption of our AI search platform—and a direct connection to customers.”
The U.S. Division of Justice sued Google in 2020, alleging it illegally dominates search and promoting. In April, a federal court docket dominated Google had monopolized the digital advert market. Chrome accounts for about 65% of world browser use, however a March 2025 Wharton report estimated Google’s management of search site visitors at almost 90%.
On Tuesday, Perplexity AI submitted its $34.5 billion proposal, positioning the deal as a approach to protect an open-source net and counter Large Tech’s grip on browser infrastructure. Unnamed institutional buyers again that provide.
Each Search.com and Perplexity are framing their bids as treatments to that dominance. For Search.com, nonetheless, the acquisition is about greater than infrastructure—it’s about entry.
“Google and Bing management the lion’s share of search,” Danny Bibi, CEO of Public Good’s father or mother firm Advert.com, added. “For us to catapult development and supply true incremental site visitors, Chrome is the entry level. That’s the gateway.”
Search.com is a division of Public Good, itself owned by advert.com, a digital advert community based in 1993. The corporate estimates it brings in $300 million to $400 million yearly by promoting, and believes proudly owning Chrome might push that into the billions.
Search.com’s bid matches the construction of Perplexity’s provide—together with Chrome’s codebase, emblems, infrastructure, and person knowledge—however provides user-focused perks: ad-free shopping, cashback for searches, and a 60% revenue-share mannequin for publishers.
“It’s a part of our dedication to moral AI—we’re not scraping content material with out compensation,” Anderson stated. “We need to help journalism, and we provide a 60% advert income share to the publishers who contribute content material.”
AI Arms Race Involves the Browser
The bids land as AI options turn out to be key options within the browser market. Microsoft has added Copilot Mode to Edge. Courageous contains the Leo assistant. Opera runs on Google’s Gemini and is testing a next-gen browser known as Neon. An OpenAI-built browser is rumored to be in improvement.
Search.com, which unveiled a generative AI platform earlier this month, says Chrome would function the spine for what it calls “a platform constructed for public curiosity, not simply revenue.”
“Everybody ought to have free, equitable entry to information,” Anderson stated. “We need to ship that whereas preserving publishers paid and shoppers in management.”
Google has not publicly responded to both proposal. In keeping with Anderson and Abibi, the corporate has obtained Search.com’s provide.
With two competing bids on the desk, the way forward for Chrome—and the function of AI within the browser house—is now firmly in play.
“We’ve put a stake within the floor,” Abibi stated. “It’s now as much as them.”
Perplexity didn’t reply to Decrypt’s request for remark.
