Artificial intelligence start-up Perplexity AI has made a surprise $34.5bn (£25.6bn) takeover bid for the world's most popular web browser, Google Chrome. The three-year-old firm, whose backers include Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and chip maker Nvidia, is headed by a former Google and OpenAI employee.

The multi-billion-dollar bid is a long shot, but if it worked, it could bring powerful AI features to billions of browsers

Many see Perplexity’s bid to buy Google’s Chrome browser as a strategic statement rather than a likely transaction.