News Summary

Meta Platforms Inc. considered acquiring Perplexity AI, valued at approximately $14 billion, before making a significant investment in Scale AI. Perplexity AI, known for its advanced language model-powered search capabilities, was a potential acquisition target for Meta to integrate these capabilities into its AI toolkit. However, the talks did not progress, leading Meta to invest $14.3 billion for a 49% stake in Scale AI. This strategic move allows Meta to access labeled data essential for training large language models while maintaining Scale AI’s operational independence. Concerns have been raised by Scale AI’s other clients, such as Google and OpenAI, regarding shared data access post-investment.