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Perplexity AI officially made a play for TikTok on Saturday, submitting an offer to its parent company, ByteDance, to create a new merged entity that will combine Perplexity, TikTok US and new equity partners, CNBC has learned.
The new structure would allow most of ByteDance’s existing investors to retain their ownership stakes and bring more video to Perplexity, according to a source familiar with the situation, who asked to remain anonymous because of the confidential nature of the potential deal.
Perplexity AI, artificial intelligence launching a search engine that competes with OpenAI and Googlestarted in 2024 with approx 500 million dollars valuation and ended the year with a valuation of about 9 billion dollarsafter attracting increasing investor interest amid the generative artificial intelligence boom — as well as controversy surrounding accusations of plagiarism.
Artificial intelligence-assisted search is considered by investors as one of the Google’s key risks, as it potentially changes the way consumers access information online. Last year, OpenAI, which kicked off the generative AI frenzy in late 2022 with ChatGPT, introduced a search engine called SearchGPT. Google later launched “AI Previews” in search, allowing users to see a quick summary of the answers at the top of the results.
Although any potential transaction between Perplexity AI and ByteDance would likely take months — and TikTok he said the app will “go dark” in the US on Sunday unless the Biden administration guarantees it won’t punish AppleGoogle and other service providers to adopt it — the president-elect Donald Trump he told NBC News on Saturday that he will “most likely” give TikTok another 90 days to reach a deal after he is sworn in on Monday.
In a video posted on TikTok on Friday, CEO Shou Zi Chew said, “I want to thank President Trump for his commitment to working with us to find a solution that keeps TikTok available in the United States.”
ByteDance has publicly implied this won’t sell TikTok US, which is part of the reason Perplexity AI believes it has a chance with its bid — since the proposal is a merger, not a sale, a source told CNBC.
The source believes the fair price is “well north of $50 billion,” but that the final number attached to the proposal will partly decide which of ByteDance’s existing shareholders want to stay part of the new entity and which want to cash out. .
CORRECTION: Perplexity’s AI offering for TikTok would create a new merged entity combining Perplexity, TikTok US and new equity partners. A previous version of this article misstated one of the participants.
