AI Daily: Perplexity offers to buy Google’s Chrome for $34.5B

Catch up on the top artificial intelligence news and commentary by Wall Street analysts on publicly traded companies in the space with this daily recap compiled by The Fly:

BUYING GOOGLE CHROME: Perplexity has offered $34.5B to acquire Google’s (GOOGL) Chrome browser, The Wall Street Journal’s Katherine Blunt reports. The company told the publication that several investors including large venture-capital funds had agreed to back the transaction in full. U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta is weighing whether to force Google to sell the browser after ruling that Google illegally monopolized the search market. In a letter to Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai, Perplexity says its offer to buy Chrome is “designed to satisfy an antitrust remedy in highest public interest by placing Chrome with a capable, independent operator.”

AI TALENT: Microsoft (MSFT) is targeting Meta (META) employees in the AI talent war, Business Insider’s Ashley Stewart reports. According to the report, Microsoft has compiled a list of its most-wanted Meta engineers and researchers, and is starting a new process intended to make offers more competitive, including a mandate to match Meta’s compensation for top talent. Microsoft documents viewed by Business Insider show the software company is making multimillion-dollar offers, with two people familiar with the process saying multimillion-dollar on-hire bonuses for AI talent are becoming more common.

IMMEDIATE LEGAL ACTION: Tesla (TSLA) CEO Elon Musk said via X, “Apple is behaving in a manner that makes it impossible for any AI company besides OpenAI to reach #1 in the App Store, which is an unequivocal antitrust violation. xAI will take immediate legal action.”

MOVING TO C3 AI SIDELINES: Northland analyst Michael Latimore downgraded C3 AI (AI) to Market Perform from Outperform with a price target of $17, down from $35, after the company announced preliminary revenue and subscription estimates that came in lower than the firm’s forecasts “at a time of strong enterprise AI demand.” The firm is downgrading the stock until the company gets closer to profitable growth, the analyst tells investors.

AI INITIATIVE: Nuvini Group announced the next phase of its strategic AI initiative with the launch of the NuviniAI Prize, a national competition designed to accelerate artificial intelligence innovation across Brazil’s B2B software ecosystem. The launch of AI Prize, in collaboration with Oracle and NVIDIA, is an evolution of Nuvini’s previously announced Inaugural NuviniAI Day held at Oracle’s Sao Paulo headquarters where three finalist projects were selected to be implemented across the Nuvini ecosystem. The NuviniAI Prize is open to all B2B software companies in Brazil, offering participants strategic benefits such as increased visibility among investors and industry leaders, access to Nuvini’s SaaS network for partnerships, mentorship and infrastructure support provided by Oracle, and expert-led market validation.

TARGET CUT: BofA lowered the firm’s price target on Pony AI (PONY) to $20 from $21 and keeps a Buy rating on the shares after the company reported Q2 results. Management commented that its strong Robotaxi fare-charging revenue growth in Q2 has been driven by enlarged fleet size, extension of user adoption – its registered users grew 136% year-over-year in Q2, attractive pricing strategy; and enlarged operating areas in tier 1 cities. BofA remains bullish as it believes Pony will scale up its Robotaxi fleet size and see improving profitability, given better economies of scale and unit profitability.