U.S. artificial intelligence startup Perplexity is said to be proposing a merger with Tiktok's U.S. operations.

After a brief suspension of service, the short video social media platform TikTok resumed service in the U.S. on Sunday.

But news broke that Perplexity submitted a takeover proposal to TikTok's parent company, ByteDance, earlier on Saturday before TikTok suspended its services.

According to Investor's Business Daily, the proposal suggests merging Perplexity, TikTok's U.S. unit, and a new capital partner into a new entity.

Notably, this merger proposal allows a majority of ByteDance's existing investors to retain equity.

Founded in 2022, Perplexity is a research and conversation search engine powered by AI chatbots.

Early investors in the company include Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Nvidia and venture capital firm New Enterprise Associates.

Perplexity is valued at $9 billion after closing a $500 million funding round last December.