Well, this is a surprise.
CNBC is reporting that Perplexity, the fast-growing AI search startup valued at $9 billion, has put in a late bid to merge with TikTok’s U.S. arm. See the full report for more details.
The proposed deal would combine Perplexity and TikTok U.S. into a single entity, and would allow ByteDance, TikTok’s Chinese parent company, to maintain its equity stakes.
The bid comes as President-elect Donald Trump says he may grant TikTok a 90-day extension to finalize a deal before any potential U.S. shutdown of the app, following yesterday’s SCOTUS decision.
Why This Matters:
The proposed merger would bring on a fundamental shift in online search.
Perplexity’s popular GenAI search experience already competes directly with Google Search. Partnering with TikTok would ramp up this challenge, as TikTok has become a search engine in its own right, with young users preferring it over Google according to SOCi data. A merger between TikTok and Perplexity would also pose a direct challenge to Google’s video dominance with YouTube.
However you look at it, a Perplexity-TikTok partnership could transform how people—especially younger audiences—search for and consume content online (and shop online, as Perplexity also recently launched shopping features). For advertisers, a unified offering would be massively popular.
If you’re Google, right now you have to be doing two things: sweating and lobbying behind the scenes to block this deal from happening.
Experts React:
Some experts think a Perplexity and TikTok deal makes sense. Others think it has no shot. Here are a few of the hotter takes on X.
Our Take:
Perplexity is one of the most exciting players in AI, and combining its technology with TikTok’s video library and algorithms makes strategic sense, especially as search becomes more visual and video-driven.
This deal would also position Perplexity as a social media competitor while taking it off the acquisition table for companies like Meta or X. Not that there were a ton of rumors suggesting this could occur, but it has been fun to speculate.
Either way, if this deal happens—and it all seems like a long shot given Perplexity’s size—the implications for both search and social media could be transformative. We’ll see.
