Perplexity AI just made a $34.5 billion bid for Google’s Chrome browser(новое окно) — a bold move from a three-year-old startup(новое окно) worth less than half that. On paper, it’s about market share in the AI search race. In practice, it’s about something far more valuable: the intimate, unfiltered data inside your browser.
Browsers aren’t just windows to the internet. They’re windows into you. And AI companies have learned the same lesson Google did: owning the browser means owning the user.
Why this bid matters
Chrome has more than 3 billion users worldwide, and regulators have already considered forcing Google to sell it(новое окно). If Perplexity is able to acquire Chrome, it wouldn’t just gain an enormous audience overnight — it would inherit a direct channel to observe, collect, and potentially monetize nearly everything those users do online.
The fact that multiple funds are reportedly(новое окно) ready to finance the deal shows how valuable control of a major browser has become. And it’s not about ad revenue — yet. It’s about training AI models with vast, high-quality behavioral data.
The Perplexity browser needs all your data
Perplexity already has an AI browser, Comet, designed to fetch answers, summarize pages, and complete tasks on your behalf. But the company’s own privacy disclosures(новое окно) show how much data it can take in the process:
- URLs of the websites you visit
- The text, images, and other resources of those pages
- The permissions you grant those websites
- The number of windows and tabs you have open
- Your search queries
- What you download
- The cookies from websites
It also asks your permission to access all the data in your Google Account, meaning it can read your emails, go through your contacts, see all your stored files, and more.
Comet also includes Personal Search(новое окно) with Comet Intelligence, which analyzes your browsing history to retrieve relevant information.
In some cases, you need to give Comet access to this information for it to be able to act on your behalf (for example, Comet can’t summarize an email for you if it doesn’t have access to your inbox). Perplexity has also claimed Comet ensures user privacy by storing much of this data on your device(новое окно) and only sends it to Perplexity servers to fulfill specific, tightly scoped requests. Still, Comet’s terms give Perplexity permission to access and use all this personal information “”to provide and improve Comet and recommend relevant content, including using AI tools” by default.
The data in your Personal Search feature is also used to train and improve Perplexity’s AI models.
This means your search history, your emails, your family photos could be used to personalize responses, shape what you see next, and in some cases, be shared with third parties. To prevent this type of training, you must opt out, something we have seen few people do.
Comet doesn’t have ads — yet
The current version of Comet, only available with a $200 subscription to Perplexity Max, doesn’t show ads, but the company says a free version will be made available(новое окно). However, Perplexity is already building up an ad business(новое окно) and its CEO, Aravind Srinivas, was forthright about an AI-powered browser’s potential to place ads during an interview in April, saying:
That’s kind of one of the other reasons we wanted to build a browser, is we want to get data even outside the app to better understand you.
What are the things you’re buying; which hotels are you going [to]; which restaurants are you going to; what are you spending time browsing, tells us so much more about you. We plan to use all the context to build a better user profile and, maybe you know, through our discover feed we could show some ads there.
In a market where scaling an AI product is expensive and recurring subscription revenue is rare, ads are a proven, lucrative model. Combine that with the kind of behavioral data a browser can collect — purchases, travel plans, interests — and the commercial incentives are obvious. Even if Comet isn’t running ads today, the economic logic points in that direction.Why AI companies want your browser
Owning the browser means owning the funnel:
- Collect — Every scroll, click, search, and form submission can be recorded.
- Train — That data can feed AI models, making them smarter at no extra cost.
- Monetize — Even if there are no ads in the browser yet, the groundwork is being laid(новое окно). Rich behavioral profiles can later be sold through hyper-targeted ads, dynamic pricing, or commercial partnerships.
It’s a double payoff: free training data plus advertising revenue. The sales pitch is convenience. The business model is surveillance, and the race is already on.
OpenAI has a browser on the way and hired Meta’s former head of monetizing the Facebook app(новое окно) and building its ad business. Google is weaving its AI systems into every corner of its ecosystem. Others — like The Browser Company, Brave, and DuckDuckGo — are experimenting with ways to integrate AI without leaning on surveillance-based monetization. But with most major players chasing scale and market dominance, privacy-focused alternatives will have to fight to stay relevant and solvent in a market built on and dependent upon data extraction.
We’ve seen this before
Given the chance to reinvent how we access the web, AI companies seem to be falling back on the same surveillance-based business model(новое окно) that eroded online privacy in the first place. Only now, they have more data sources, more powerful profiling tools, and even less oversight.
Chrome became a pillar of Google’s empire because it wasn’t just a browser — it was a data collection engine. Perplexity’s bid shows that AI companies see the same potential. If they succeed, your browser history won’t just be a record of where you’ve been online. It will be raw material for an AI model that knows more about you than you may know about yourself.
The browser is your front door to the internet — and the record keeper of everything you do there. Handing that control to an AI company is like giving them the keys to your most valuable, sensitive information. Once they’re inside, locking them out may be impossible.
