AI startup Perplexity has made an unsolicited offer to acquire Google's Chrome browser for a reported $34.5 billion, as reported by The Wall Street Journal. The deal would be worth more than Perplexity is valued at itself, though several prominent investors have reportedly agreed to back the move. The bid comes after the U.S. Department of Justice repeatedly urged Google to divest Chrome as part of an antitrust and monopoly lawsuit the giant lost in 2024, though little has happened on that front sincepe. Perplexity had also been one to submit a bid to merge with TikTok U.S. earlier this year in January.
According to a report by the Financial Times, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is reportedly working on co-launching Merge Labs, a new brain-to-computer interface startup. The startup is currently in early talks to raise funds, including from OpenAI's venture team, and could debut at a valuation of $850 million. Merge Labs is also working with Alex Blania, who runs Tools for Humanity, and could one day become a rival to Elon Musk's Neuralink, which itself has been working on tech for merging human cognition with machines since 2016.
One of xAI's most senior engineers, co-founder Igor Babuschkin, has left Elon Musk's AI startup to pursue his ambitions with a new venture capital firm, he announced on X/Twitter. Babuschkin Ventures will aim to support AI safety research and back startups that "advance humanity and unlock the mysteries of our universe." Babuschkin's exit comes at a time when xAI's Grok was surrounded in controversy, such as the recent "MechaHitler incident" and bias spree towards its CEO's opinions. Nonetheless, Babuschkin says he looks back at his time at xAI fondly with the achievements and state-of-the-art tech they achieved together.
Canadian AI startup Cohere has recently hit a valuation of $6.8 billion following an oversubscribed $500 million fundraiser, much like its last one the year before, led by Radical Ventures and Inovia Capital with support from Nvidia, AMD, and Salesforce. The 2019 firm was one of the first breakout LLM makers, with one of its co-founders, Aidan Gomez, being one of the authors behind the modern foundation of AI. Much like others in the industry, Cohere has also recently joined the talent poaching craze by appointing former Meta VP of AI research Joelle Pineau as its own chief AI officer.
An extensive report from Bloomberg alleges that Apple is developing a range of AI-driven smart home products, including a more conversational, animated Siri, multiple robots, and new home devices. Apple's AI plan also includes an Amazon Astro-like wheeled robot, "loosely discussed" humanoids, and even a tabletop robot with a moving arm-mounted display. Slated for 2027, the tabletop robot would also include a more "visual version" of Siri, which itself could shift to being powered by LLMs.