Perplexity Offers Google 34.5 Billion for Chrome

Tonia Hardeman

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Aug 13 • General Discussion 💬

If anyone follows Jason Haddix, you've probably heard about Perplexity offering Google 34.5B for Chrome.

https://x.com/Jhaddix/status/1955515655345803425

This got my attention, so I dug further.

Here is what I learned:

Perplexity just lobbed a 34.5B offer at Google for Chrome. Whether this closes or not, the signal is loud: the browser is turning into the AI control plane for the internet.

New internet: tabs become tasks, pages become APIs, your agent negotiates with services on your behalf. Chrome, or any dominant browser, becomes the runtime for agents, not just HTML.

Protocols that matter:

• MCP, Model Context Protocol, gives models a standard way to plug into tools and data, think USB for AI. This is how agents get real capabilities without duct tape.

• A2A, Agent-to-Agent, lets agents talk to each other directly, coordinate, and transact across vendors. Interop kills lock-in, it also explodes the attack surface.

Infinite extensibility of data: with MCP-style connectors, anything you can read or write becomes callable, databases, calendars, POS, cameras. Context stops being a static prompt, it becomes a live graph that your agent can extend on the fly. Power goes up, governance better be ready.

Ultra-personalized ads: the unit of advertising shifts from a banner to an instruction. Agent-to-agent bidding for your next action, not your next click. Your agent will broker your attention, price it, and enforce preferences, or you will get steamrolled by dark-pattern agent scripts.

Security, the part most folks will ignore until it bites:

• Supply chain, every MCP server is a new dependency. Sign everything, sandbox hard, monitor egress.

• Prompt injection moves into the DOM, the browser becomes the blast radius.

• Memory theft, if your agent keeps long-term memory, that store is the new crown jewels. Local first, encrypted by default, consent receipts, easy revocation.

Open questions for you all:

Should a browser that controls distribution for search and agents live outside a search giant, or is this possible sale a cure worse than the disease?

What baseline rights should a personal agent enforce, ad-free mode, default deny on data sharing, verifiable consent, rate limits on agent-to-agent requests?

If MCP and A2A win, what is the minimal security standard, signed connectors, capability-scoped keys, per-task sandboxes, audit logs by default?

If Chrome became AI-native tomorrow, what would you build first, and what would you block by policy on day one?

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