[LOS ANGELES] Meta Platforms held discussions with artificial intelligence (AI) search startup Perplexity AI about a possible takeover before moving ahead with a multibillion-dollar investment in Scale AI, according to sources familiar with the matter.
The two companies could not come to an agreement and decided not to pursue the deal, said the sources, who asked not to be named as the details of the talks are not public. The financial terms under discussion could not be learned. Perplexity recently closed a new round of funding at a US$14 billion valuation.
Meta also attempted to hire Perplexity chief executive officer Aravind Srinivas to join the social media company’s new “superintelligence” team, which is focused on building more powerful AI systems, the sources said.
The talks with Meta, which have not previously been reported, highlight Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s willingness to use deals and big hires to catch up in the AI race. The talks took place before Meta finalised a US$14.3 billion investment in Scale AI that gives it a 49 per cent stake in the data-labelling startup.
Meta and Perplexity did not respond to requests for comment.
Founded in 2022, Perplexity has emerged as one of the most prominent startups using generative AI to rethink core Internet services. Perplexity is taking on Alphabet’s Google by offering an AI tool that summarises search results, lists citations for its answers and helps users refine their queries to get the best responses. The startup is also developing an AI-powered web browser.
BT in your inbox
Start and end each day with the latest news stories and analyses delivered straight to your inbox.
Frustrated with the pace of Meta’s AI development, Zuckerberg is making a concerted push to poach top AI talent from across the industry with lucrative pay packages. Meta has succeeded in hiring Scale AI’s former CEO Alexandr Wang, as well as top researchers from Google DeepMind and Sesame AI.
Not everyone is jumping to join Meta, however. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said in a podcast this week that some on his staff had been approached by Meta with offers of US$100 million signing bonuses and even bigger compensation packages, but had declined to join the company.
Meta has been in talks with former GitHub CEO Nat Friedman to recruit him to the new team, according to sources familiar with the matter. The company has also been working on hiring Daniel Gross, the CEO of Safe Superintelligence, a research lab founded by former OpenAI chief scientist Ilya Sutskever, the source said.
Meta has also held early discussions for a computing deal in which Safe Superintelligence would use Meta’s data centre infrastructure, the source said. Representatives for Safe Superintelligence did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Other Big Tech firms, including Google and Amazon.com, have tried to establish themselves as the backbone of the AI ecosystem by providing chips and cloud computing resources to AI startups. Meta has not gone this route to date. BLOOMBERG
