Perplexity has emerged as one of the companies interested in purchasing Chrome if Google is forced to sell it—and that’s a terrifying prospect.

Google is in the remedies stage of its antitrust trial, with the DOJ pushing for the company to be forced to sell off Chrome. Both OpenAI and Perplexity have voiced their interest in purchasing the browser, with a web browser offering an AI firm a wealth of user data.

While users may suspect that AI firms would use a web browser to hoover up as much data as possible, Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas has said the quiet part out loud, admitting his company wants a web browser to “get data even outside the [Perplexity] app to better understand you.”

Srinivas made his comments on the TBPN podcast, via TechCrunch.

“That’s kind of one of the other reasons we wanted to build a browser, is we want to get data even outside the app to better understand you,” Srinivas said. “Because some of the prompts that people do in these AIs is purely work-related. It’s not like that’s personal.

“On the other hand, what are the things you’re buying; which hotels are you going [to]; which restaurants are you going to; what are you spending time browsing, tells us so much more about you,” he added.

“We plan to use all the context to build a better user profile and, maybe you know, through our discover feed we could show some ads there.”

Out of the Frying Pan, Into the Fire

Google is well-known for abusing its position as owner of the world’s most popular web browser, using it as a way to collect massive amounts of data—even when users had Incognito mode enabled. The whole reason for that data collection is to provide highly-targeted ads.

Unfortunately, it appears AI firms’ goals are not any more altruistic, with Srinivas making clear his company wants to use a web browser as a way to collecty as much personal data about users as possible.

Perplexity is already working on its own in-house browser, named Comet, but it clearly sees Chrome as a way to jumpstart its efforts.

Srinivas’ admission is merely the latest cautionary tale regarding AI and the firms behind it.