Google Avoids Breakup in Antitrust Case as AI Emerges as Potential Competitor

Google avoids being dismantled after US court battle - and it's down to the rise of AI

Lancaster University provides funding as a founding partner of The Conversation UK. A year ago, Google faced the prospect of being dismantled. Today, artificial intelligence (AI) and a new court judgment has helped it avoid this fate. Part of the reason is that AI poses a grave threat to Google's advertising revenues. "Google will not be required to divest Chrome; nor will the court include a contingent divestiture of the Android operating system in the final judgment," according to the decision. Google must share certain data with "qualified competitors" as deemed by the court. This will include parts of its search index, Google's inventory of web content. Judge Mehta will allow Google to continue paying companies like Apple and Samsung to distribute of its search engine on devices and browsers. But he will bar Google from maintaining exclusive contracts. The history of this decision goes back to a 2024 ruling by federal judge Amit Mehta. It found that Google maintained a monopoly in the search engine market, notably by paying billions to companies including Apple and Samsung to set Google as the default search engine on their devices. Almost a year later, the same US judge issued his final ruling, and the tone could not be more different. Google will not be broken up. There will be no choice screen on new phones. The nature of the search engine market, where more users generate more data, and more data improves search quality, made it impossible for competitors to challenge Google, the court found in 2024. The 2024 ruling itself was controversial. While high quality data enables a dominant firm to extract more profit from consumers, it also allows it to provide a better service. Decades of research in economics has shown that determining which effect is more important is not straightforward. At the time, the US Department of Justice deemed the issue so serious that it considered breaking up Google as the only viable solution. For instance, it suggested forcing the company to sell its web browser, Google Chrome. The government also proposed forcing device manufacturers to offer users a choice of search engines during set up, and compelling Google to share most of its data on user behaviour and ad bidding, where advertisers compete in auctions to get their ads shown to users for a specific search query or audience. These so-called "remedies", measures Google would be required to implement to end its monopoly, aimed to restore competition. Limited sharing So, what has changed in a year to so radically change the perception of Google's market dominance? The main answer is AI - and specifically, large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT, Claude, and Google's own Gemini. As users increasingly turn to LLMs for web searches, Google responded by placing AI-generated summaries at the top of its search results. Read more: Google monopoly ruling: where the tech giant goes from here The way people navigate the internet is quickly evolving, with one trend reshaping the business models of online companies: the zero click search. According to a Bain & Company survey, consumers now default to accepting AI-generated answers without further interaction. The data is striking: 80% of users report being satisfied with AI responses for at least 40% of their searches, often stopping at the summary page. Threat to ad revenue This AI-driven shift in consumer behaviour threatens not only Google's business model but also that of most internet based companies. Advertising accounts for roughly 80% of Google's revenue, earned by charging companies for prominent placement in search results and by leveraging its vast amount of user data to sell ad space across the web. If users stop clicking links, this revenue stream evaporates. More importantly for this ruling, the market Google once monopolised may no longer be the relevant one. Today, Google's primary potential competitors in search are not Microsoft Bing, but AI models like ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity. In the global race for AI dominance, the outcome is far from certain. From an antitrust standpoint, there is little justification for penalising Google now or forcing it to cede advantages to competitors. What would be the benefit for consumers of forcing Google to accept the £24.6 billion offer from Jeff Bezos' Perplexity AI to buy the Chrome browser? In essence, the judge acknowledges that Google monopolised the search engine market for a decade but concludes that the issue may resolve itself in the years ahead. This situation echoes the first major monopolisation case: Internet Explorer. For years, European and US regulators battled Microsoft to dismantle the dominance of its web browser, which was bundled with the then-dominant Windows 95 operating system. By the time all appeals were exhausted, however, the monopoly had vanished. Internet Explorer was partly a victim of the rise of smartphones, which did not rely on Windows. The new king in town was a newcomer: a certain Google Chrome. How you view the economic and political power of tech giants will shape which lesson you draw from this story. An optimistic view I suggested (with the economist Jana Friedrichsen) is that winner-takes-all markets can intensify competition through innovation. In such markets, incremental investment is not enough; to challenge Google, a competitor must offer a vastly superior product to capture the entire market. Precisely because they ruthlessly defend their monopoly positions, tech giants show competitors that the potential gains from radical innovations are massive. The pessimistic view, however, is that years of dominance have left these firms largely unaccountable, which could embolden them in future.

Google Saved From Breakup in Antitrust Case by AI Threat

Alphabet Inc.'s Google, found by the US last year to have a monopoly in online search, avoided the most severe outcomes because the judge in the case concluded that its business was already under a growing threat -- from AI. "The emergence of GenAI changed the course of this case," Judge Amit Mehta wrote Tuesday in his 223-page ruling. While generative AI chatbots like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Claude aren't yet close to replacing Google search, they "may yet prove to be game changers," meaning the court should sit back and let the market work, he explained.

Google's AI rivals get a boost from data-sharing order, but tech giant far from routed

SAN FRANCISCO, Sept 3 (Reuters) - A rising group of artificial intelligence companies stand to gain from an antitrust ruling on Tuesday that ordered Alphabet's (GOOGL.O), opens new tab Google to share its invaluable search data with competitors. Matching Google's heft, though, will take time and huge resources, with no guarantees that any rival product will win as many users, experts said. While Google was spared the devastating outcome of having to sell its popular Chrome browser and Android operating system, U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta's ruling was a nod to regulators' efforts to level the playing field for companies who have invested billions to boost their AI business. "The emergence of GenAI changed the course of this case," Mehta wrote in his ruling. He said that tens of millions of people use generative AI chatbots like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Claude to gather information that they previously sought through internet search. While these chatbots are not yet close to replacing traditional search, the industry expects that developers will continue to add features to GenAI products to perform more like Google Search, he said. The data-sharing requirement does not alter Google's existing means of distribution, allowing the company to continue to pay the likes of Apple (AAPL.O), opens new tab to make its search engine the default option. However, it lowers the barrier for competitors to develop and distribute their own alternatives to Google Search, experts said. These AI products, some say, pose a bigger threat to Google than the antitrust case. But development will take time and resources, giving Alphabet investors a measure of confidence in the near term. MASSIVE CAPITAL NEEDED The current slate of AI search engines and browsers has not made a material dent in Google's market share. While ChatGPT, OpenAI's popular AI chatbot, has outpaced Google's offering, Gemini, in terms of users, Google has sought to counteract the effect through features like AI Overviews and AI Mode to keep users on its search engine. "It takes effort for competitors to rely on the syndication and indexes that Google can provide to build a consumer facing experience," said Deepak Mathivanan, an analyst with Cantor Fitzgerald. "And it would take a longer period of time for consumers to also embrace these new experiences." Indexing is how Google discovers, analyzes and stores website pages in its vast database for relevant search results, while propagating the reach of a website through republishing content. Even with access to Google data, it would be "astronomically expensive" for rivals to build the kind of product that could pry users away from Google, said Ben Bajarin, CEO of tech consulting firm Creative Strategies. Nevertheless, a number of well-capitalized AI startups have already poured significant amounts of venture capital funding towards doing exactly that. OpenAI offers a search product within ChatGPT and Reuters reported in July that is close to releasing a web browser to challenge Chrome. Startup Perplexity, backed by Nvidia (NVDA.O), opens new tab, has already released its own AI-powered search and browser offerings, and is now negotiating to preload its browser onto some phone makers' devices. Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai expressed concerns during the trial in April that the data-sharing measures sought by the U.S. Department of Justice could enable Google's rivals to reverse-engineer its technology. By gaining insights into Google's market-leading IP, tech giants with giant coffers could make a new run at the search market. Microsoft (MSFT.O), opens new tab might make a renewed push to improve the market share of Bing, and Apple, viewed as an AI laggard after failing to deliver on promised AI upgrades to key products like Siri, could try to enter the search market, Mathivanan said. Judge Mehta said in his order that allowing Google to continue paying other companies to promote its search engine "is more palatable now" because "established technology companies are making, and start-ups are receiving, hundreds of billions of dollars in capital to develop [generative AI] products that pose a threat to the primacy of traditional internet search." Reporting by Kenrick Cai in San Francisco; Editing by Sayantani Ghosh and Sonali Paul Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab * Suggested Topics: * Artificial Intelligence * Data Privacy * Regulatory Oversight * Intellectual Property * Antitrust Kenrick Cai Thomson Reuters Kenrick Cai is a correspondent for Reuters based in San Francisco. He covers Google, its parent company Alphabet and artificial intelligence. Cai joined Reuters in 2024. He previously worked at Forbes magazine, where he was a staff writer covering venture capital and startups. He received a Best in Business award from the Society for Advancing Business Editing and Writing in 2023. He is a graduate of Duke University.

Google's AI stumbles, ChatGPT's emergence 'changed the course' of antitrust case

Google CEO Sundar Pichai gestures to the crowd during Google's annual I/O developers conference in Mountain View, California, on May 20, 2025. When OpenAI rocked the tech world with the launch of ChatGPT in 2022, Google scrambled to roll out what employees called a "rushed," "botched" and "un-Googley" competitor. Those early stumbles may have been a blessing in disguise. On Tuesday, a federal judge ruled against the most severe consequences that were proposed by the U.S. Department of Justice as part of a landmark antitrust case filed in 2020. Google lost the case last year, but the judge decided that the search giant can keep its Chrome browser, defying the government's request. The harshest punishment handed down bars Google from engaging in exclusive contracts that come with payments or licensing. The company must also share search data. Google's victory, despite its loss at trial, is largely the result of the fiercely competitive AI industry that's taken shape in less than three years. U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta wrote in a filing that "the emergence of GenAI changed the course of this case." "Google is still the dominant firm in the relevant product markets," Mehta wrote. "No existing rival has wrested market share from Google. And no new competitor has entered the market. But artificial intelligence technologies, particularly generative AI ("GenAI"), may yet prove to be game changers," Tuesday's decision lands nearly a year after Mehta ruled Google illegally held a monopoly in internet search. Shares of Google soared in extended trading. Mehta dedicated roughly 30 pages of the 226-page filing to explaining generative AI and the market as it exists today. He described the space as "highly competitive" and wrote that there have been "numerous new market entrants" with access to "a lot of capital." In other words, the AI market has become hugely important and has entirely different competitive dynamics than search, which Google dominates. Mehta said it will stay that way. "Google cannot use the same anticompetitive playbook for its GenAI products that it used for Search," he wrote. Representatives from Google and the DOJ didn't respond to requests for comment. Generative AI startups are repeatedly mentioned throughout the document. OpenAI's name comes up 30 times, Anthropic is named six times and Perplexity shows up in 24 instances. Anthropic and Perplexity had not even been founded when the case was originally filed, as they launched in 2021 and 2022, respectively. OpenAI had been around for several years, but it was a long way from becoming a household name. Its ChatGPT chatbot was introduced to the public in late 2022, an unveiling that sparked the generative AI boom. ChatGPT was named 28 times in Tuesday's filing. "Today, tens of millions of people use GenAI chatbots, like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Claude, to gather information that they previously sought through internet search," the filing says. The remedies determination also mentioned Elon Musk's xAI as well as other companies including DuckDuckGo, which has a chat service called Duck.ai, Meta and China's DeepSeek as competitors in the space. "These remedies proceedings thus have been as much about promoting competition among GSEs [general search engines] as ensuring that Google's dominance in search does not carry over into the GenAI space," the filing says.

Why Is Google Climbing Today? Here Are The Basics

The judge gave Google a win on the basis that AI would be a competitive threat to its search engine. Google investors were overjoyed on Wednesday in response to a long-awaited decision in a high-profile federal antitrust case against Google. On Tuesday, federal judge Amit P. Mehta of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ruled that Google could get to keep its Chrome browser, despite a previous ruling also by Mehta declaring that the tech giant’s search business was a monopoly. In response, Google stock had its largest upside non-earnings-related overnight gap up since it was added to the S&P 500 in 2008, according to Bespoke Investment Group. Instead of divesting, the court is asking Google to share search index and user data with its competitors and refrain from exclusive contracts (though with carve outs that allow some exclusive contracts. The major reason behind this decision that’s being largely considered a win for Google was supposedly the advent of AI. “The emergence of GenAI changed the course of this case,†Judge Mehta said in the ruling. “For the first time in over a decade, there is a genuine prospect that a product could emerge that will present a meaningful challenge to Google’s market dominance,†the court ruled. The court said that “unlike the typical case where the court’s job is to resolve a dispute based on historic facts, here the court is asked to gaze into a crystal ball and look to the future.†Based on the many witnesses that painted generative AI as a budding competitive threat to Google search business, the court decided that “market forces†would decide the future of Google's search engine market dominance. How that is supposed to play out we will see in the coming years, but the testimony given by top executives from Google and Apple at the trial could show a roadmap of how the tech industry is thinking about it. Last year, Judge Mehta declared that Google holds a monopoly in online search and search-tied advertising. On Tuesday afternoon, the judge decided on remedies to this ruling that would open the search engine space up for competition. Some expected that the judge would rule Google to divest from Chrome, a decision that would have been the most obvious way to combat a monopoly. But instead the judge went with more subdued actions that mostly aimed at limiting Google’s exclusive contracts, which was along the lines of what the tech giant had asked for at court. Google requested that the remedies be limited to barring the company from entering into exclusive distribution agreements, and nothing more, because “the GenAI technology space is highly competitive and any further restrictions would unfairly hobble it in that fight," court documents show. Although Google’s Gemini trails competitor product OpenAI’s ChatGPT, the tech giant’s generative AI offerings are still doing considerably well as Google aims to further increase its investment in scaling out the technology. The decision was undoubtedly a win for Google, and parent company Alphabet’s stock. “This is a monster win for Cupertino and for Google,†Dan Ives, Wedbush Securities analyst and global head of technology research, wrote in an analyst note on Tuesday. Cupertino-based Apple is also considered a winner, even though the company was not a party in the trial, as the court decided to spare its billions of dollars worth deal to have Google the default search engine on the Safari browser. Competitors were dismayed. “We do not believe the remedies ordered by the court will force the changes necessary to adequately address Google’s illegal behavior,†a spokesperson for search engine DuckDuckGo told Gizmodo on Tuesday. Generative AI and general search engines (referred to in the lawsuit as GSEs) have a complicated relationship. Generative AI technologies, and specifically chatbots like ChatGPT and Anthropic’s Claude, are used by millions to answer questions that a few years ago would have been a Google search query. The chatbots also often include links to websites as citations in the answers they provide, much like a search engine would guide the user, albeit to more options. Search engines have taken over this role so much that many websites and media organizations who rely on these clicks to keep their business going are understandably worried. “Chatbots perform an information-retrieval function like that performed by GSEs,†the ruling said, adding that although the chatbots “are not yet close to replacing†search engines, “the industry expects that developers will continue to add features to GenAI products to perform more like GSEs.†In his testimony, Apple’s Eddy Cue, senior VP of services, said that generative AI products “may be having some impact†on search engine usage. “The volume of Google search queries in Apple’s Safari web browser declined for the first time in 22 years, perhaps due to the emergence of GenAI chatbots,†Cue said. When asked what it would take for Apple to choose any other competitor over Google as the default search engine for its browser, Cue said that no existing search engine could dethrone Google, but a generative AI product might if it evolved the right way. That is, the LLM technology itself is already doing fine, but what would provide the competitive edge would be if generative AI products grow their search index, aka the data available for retrieval. “What that will do is create a product that gives better results, new capabilities. You know, those are things that people are interested in today,†Cue said. How much of a competitive edge do they have? But despite the obvious competitive risk posed to search engines by AI, generative AI has also been integrated into search engines to increase their competitive edge. Google’s search head Liz Reid said during the trial that Google Search queries have increased by “more than hundreds of millions of queries a month in the U.S. alone†since introducing AI Overviews in search. At the company’s earnings call in July, CEO Sundar Pichai said that Google’s new AI features were now driving “over 10% more queries globally.†The executives also said that Google is looking into ways that its GenAI product Gemini can be a search engine access point by kicking commercial queries back to Search, court documents show. As Google wins this lawsuit on the basis that AI will prove to compete with its most precious product, the focus now shifts to how the tech industry will contend with this complicated dynamic between its most prized emerging technology that is AI and search engines that provide the foundation of the current internet.

AI is Google's competition. Will a DOJ ruling help Google fight back?

With a crucial antitrust case over, the company may have more room to fight in the AI arena. Why it matters: Wall Street is suddenly a lot more bullish on parent company Alphabet's prospects. What they're saying: "This clears the path for Google to dive into the deep end of the pool on AI," Dan Ives, global head of technology research at Wedbush Securities told Axios. * OpenAI and Perplexity made clear their interest in potentially buying the Chrome browser, showing how valuable Google's market position is, even amid the AI revolution. Zoom in: A judge's ruling framed AI as a direct threat to the primacy of traditional internet search, undercutting the DOJ's case that Google holds an unshakable monopoly. * The court sees AI as Google's competition, and it spent about half of the 200+ page ruling discussing exactly that. * But the company still faces constraints, like sharing data with competitors and a bar on locking in long-term search deals. Zoom out: For investors, the ruling removes a key overhang. Google was the third-worst performer among the "Magnificent 7" this year until markets priced in a legal win. That slump left Alphabet looking cheap. * The stock is currently trading around 20 times forward earnings, which is 10% below its historic average -- and the cheapest in the Mag 7. * Google is "basically a value stock," writes Chris Marangi, Co-CIO of value Gabelli Funds. The intrigue: The ruling's emphasis on AI as a competitor for Google paints the bear case for the stock pretty well.

Google stock hits all-time high after government backs down and it has AI rivals to thank

Alphabet's shares surged to a record high Thursday, after U.S. regulators stepped back from a proposed set of new restrictions on large AI platforms -- a decision that unexpectedly strengthened the hand of Google's parent company. But while regulatory relief is one factor, analysts say the real driver behind Google's market-breaking rally lies in the success of its competitors. In fact, that's what the judge in Google's antitrust case said, too. In a 230-page ruling, District Court Judge Amit Mehta wrote that Google can no longer enter into exclusive distribution deals around making its search engine or its Gemini AI technology into a default option, and that it must share some search data with competitors, but stopped short of requiring it to spin off key assets, especially its Chrome web browser. Mehta wrote that the emergence of generative AI has "changed the course of this case," which began in 2020, several years before the mainstream release of ChatGPT fundamentally changed the tech sector. "The money flowing into this space, and how quickly it has arrived, is astonishing," he wrote. Alphabet's stock closed up 8% Thursday at $231.10, its highest level ever. What surprised many on Wall Street was how much Google appears to benefit indirectly from the rapid progress of its rivals. Microsoft, OpenAI, and Anthropic have spent billions elevating user expectations in AI-powered search, work software, and creative tools. Each breakthrough has ignited wider adoption of AI across industries -- demand that has spilled over into Google's own ecosystem of services and cloud infrastructure. Bank of America Research wrote that the ruling potentially cleared one of the two big stock "overhangs," saying its "top takeaway is the judgment preserves Google's ability to maintain its search distribution position." The other overhang, competitive uncertainty for search query volumes, remains, although BofA's thesis that AI is actually expanding the search market could also become a "potential net positive for Google." The bank said it has noted an improving position for Google's AI and search products year-to-date despite strong growth at emerging Gen-AI competitors. To that point, after seeming to lag in the "AI race," Google has shifted, embedding its Gemini model across Search, Docs, and Pixel devices. Investors once worried that AI chatbots could cannibalize Google's core search advertising. But Google has released data showing ad engagement holding steady, and that AI-generated answer summaries actually drove more time spent inside the Google ecosystem.

ChatGPT Just Saved Google From Having to Sell Chrome

Last year, a federal judge ruled that Google had illegally maintained its monopoly in online search. The company had spent billions paying Apple, Samsung, and others to make Google Search the default engine. Those deals locked out rivals, denied them the scale to compete, and cemented Google's dominance. Then came the harder question: what to do about it? The Department of Justice pressed for the most extreme remedy -- forcing Google to sell Chrome, the world's most popular web browser. Without Chrome, the argument went, Google would lose its most important distribution channel, breaking it apart from the thing that kept its search monopoly intact. There is no question that Chrome would be a valuable asset to someone. Perplexity even made a somewhat absurd offer to buy the world's most popular browser in the event Google were forced to sell. It's not a secret that other AI companies-like OpenAI, for example-would be very interested in the kind of distribution that would come from owning Chrome. But on September 2, Judge Amit Mehta said no. Google gets to keep Chrome. The reason? In a word: AI. Yes, Google still has a monopoly in search. Yes, a court found it harmed competition through exclusive contracts. But that same court decided that the market has shifted in ways no one predicted when the case began in 2020. Those changes are a big enough deal to change what should be done about Google. That shift comes down to generative AI. At the liability trial, no one saw chatbots as a threat. Today, tens of millions use ChatGPT, Claude, or Perplexity to search for information they once typed into Google. The court concluded that, for the first time in decades, new players are putting pressure on Google from the outside. Google's dominance has always been about scale. More queries mean more data, which means better results, which attract more users, which generate more ad dollars. Exclusive default contracts kept the cycle going. It was the perfect flywheel effect. The court's remedies are meant to affect that. Judge Mehta banned Google from paying to be the exclusive default search engine and ordered the company to share portions of its search index and related data with competitors. Those steps lower the barrier to entry for anyone building a rival product. At the same time, AI is changing user behavior. Microsoft has embedded OpenAI's models into Bing. Startups like Perplexity are building conversational interfaces that feel more like assistants than search bars. For the first time in years, people are looking for information somewhere other than Google. That's why Mehta balked at the DOJ's most aggressive ask. Forcing Google to spin off Chrome would be disruptive -- not only to Google, but to hundreds of millions of users and businesses that rely on it. And it might not even be necessary if AI-driven competitors are already loosening Google's grip. As a result, the court stopped short of breaking up Google, but it imposed sweeping behavioral remedies aimed at opening the search market. Google can no longer pay partners like Apple, Samsung, or Mozilla to make it the exclusive default search engine, and it must share critical assets -- its search index, knowledge graph, and some user and advertising data -- on fair terms with competitors so they can realistically challenge its scale. The ruling also requires Google to present users with genuine choice screens, increase transparency in its ad auctions, and submit to oversight by an independent technical committee. These measures are designed to eliminate the advantages Google gained from locking its position as the default search engine while preventing the company from extending its dominance into emerging AI-driven search. Antitrust remedies aren't necessarily about punishment for bad behavior. They're about restoring competition. In Google's case, that could have meant forcing huge structural changes like breaking apart the company. Instead, the court decided less was enough. In a sense, Google owes the fact that things didn't turn out worse to its fiercest new competitors. The rise of ChatGPT and others gave the judge confidence that market forces could naturally chip away at Google's monopoly without tearing the company apart. If those challengers didn't exist, there's a world where Chrome might well have been on the auction block. The real fight now moves to AI. Mehta's opinion is explicit: the ultimate goal is to prevent Google from extending its dominance into generative AI. If the company were to try and put a lock on distribution for Gemini the way it did for Search, it will have a problem. Just a few years ago, generative AI was mostly an academic experiment, not a product. It certainly wasn't something that could challenge one of the largest -- and most valuable -- companies on earth. But, no one -- especially not Google -- had any idea how popular ChatGPT would become in such a short amount of time. It reshaped the competitive landscape enough that a judge concluded the market might fix itself -- if given a push. That saved Google from being forced to sell Chrome. Like this column? Sign up to subscribe to email alerts and you'll never miss a post. The opinions expressed here by Inc.com columnists are their own, not those of Inc.com. The final deadline for the 2025 Inc. Best in Business Awards is Friday, September 12, at 11:59 p.m. PT. Apply now.

Google's AI rivals get a boost from data-sharing order, but tech giant far from routed - The Economic Times

A rising group of artificial intelligence companies stand to gain from an antitrust ruling on Tuesday that ordered Alphabet's Google to share its invaluable search data with competitors. Matching Google's heft, though, will take time and huge resources, with no guarantees that any rival product will win as many users, experts said. While Google was spared the devastating outcome of having to sell its popular Chrome browser and Android operating system, U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta's ruling was a nod to regulators' efforts to level the playing field for companies who have invested billions to boost their AI business. "The emergence of GenAI changed the course of this case," Mehta wrote in his ruling. He said that tens of millions of people use generative AI chatbots like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Claude to gather information that they previously sought through internet search. While these chatbots are not yet close to replacing traditional search, the industry expects that developers will continue to add features to GenAI products to perform more like Google Search, he said. The data-sharing requirement does not alter Google's existing means of distribution, allowing the company to continue to pay the likes of Apple to make its search engine the default option. However, it lowers the barrier for competitors to develop and distribute their own alternatives to Google Search, experts said. These AI products, some say, pose a bigger threat to Google than the antitrust case. But development will take time and resources, giving Alphabet investors a measure of confidence in the near term. Massive capital needed The current slate of AI search engines and browsers has not made a material dent in Google's market share. While ChatGPT, OpenAI's popular AI chatbot, has outpaced Google's offering, Gemini, in terms of users, Google has sought to counteract the effect through features like AI Overviews and AI Mode to keep users on its search engine. "It takes effort for competitors to rely on the syndication and indexes that Google can provide to build a consumer facing experience," said Deepak Mathivanan, an analyst with Cantor Fitzgerald. "And it would take a longer period of time for consumers to also embrace these new experiences." Indexing is how Google discovers, analyzes and stores website pages in its vast database for relevant search results, while propagating the reach of a website through republishing content. Even with access to Google data, it would be "astronomically expensive" for rivals to build the kind of product that could pry users away from Google, said Ben Bajarin, CEO of tech consulting firm Creative Strategies. Nevertheless, a number of well-capitalized AI startups have already poured significant amounts of venture capital funding towards doing exactly that. OpenAI offers a search product within ChatGPT and Reuters reported in July that is close to releasing a web browser to challenge Chrome. Startup Perplexity, backed by Nvidia, has already released its own AI-powered search and browser offerings, and is now negotiating to preload its browser onto some phone makers' devices. Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai expressed concerns during the trial in April that the data-sharing measures sought by the U.S. Department of Justice could enable Google's rivals to reverse-engineer its technology. By gaining insights into Google's market-leading IP, tech giants with giant coffers could make a new run at the search market. Microsoft might make a renewed push to improve the market share of Bing, and Apple, viewed as an AI laggard after failing to deliver on promised AI upgrades to key products like Siri, could try to enter the search market, Mathivanan said. Judge Mehta said in his order that allowing Google to continue paying other companies to promote its search engine "is more palatable now" because "established technology companies are making, and start-ups are receiving, hundreds of billions of dollars in capital to develop [generative AI] products that pose a threat to the primacy of traditional internet search."

OpenAI's ChatGPT Ironically Helped Google Avoid DOJ Breakup As Judge Cites Generative AI Competition In Landmark Antitrust Ruling - Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG), Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL)

A federal judge's decision to reject a breakup of Alphabet Inc.'s GOOG GOOGL core businesses highlighted how OpenAI's ChatGPT and the rise of generative AI reshaped the competitive landscape, undermining the Justice Department's landmark antitrust case. Judge Cites AI As Key Competition Factor On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta ruled that Google will not be forced to spin off key assets like YouTube, Chrome or its Android operating system, concluding that the DOJ overreached in its demands. In his ruling, Mehta repeatedly pointed to AI-driven disruption in the search market, citing ChatGPT's explosive growth to 700 million weekly users and competition from startups like Anthropic and Perplexity. "Much has changed since the end of the liability trial," the statement read, adding, "No new competitor has entered the market. But artificial intelligence technologies, particularly generative AI ('GenAI'), may yet prove to be game changers." See Also: OpenAI's ChatGPT Makes Headway In Search, Threatening Google's Reign ChatGPT Launch Flipped Google's Narrative Ironically, OpenAI's 2022 public launch of ChatGPT was initially seen as a threat to Google's dominance. Google reportedly issued a "Code Red" as it came under fire for trailing competitors like Microsoft Corporation MSFT, which quickly teamed up with OpenAI to embed ChatGPT-style features into its offerings. Now, Google's success has been used in court to prove that competition in the search space is intensifying. In response to Judge Mehta's decision, Google stated that the ruling rightly acknowledges the transformative impact of AI, which is providing people with far more options to access information. "Today's decision recognizes how much the industry has changed through the advent of AI...This underlines what we've been saying since this case was filed in 2020," the statement read. Analysts Cheer, Warren Blasts Decision The ruling sent Alphabet stock to record highs, with Class A shares jumping 5.81% in pre-market trading on Wednesday and Class C shares rising 5.39%, according to Benzinga Pro. Wedbush analyst Dan Ives called the outcome a "huge win" for both Google and Apple Inc. AAPL, while Deepwater Asset Management's Gene Munster said it showed "the regulator's bark is bigger than the bite." Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), however, called the ruling a "slap on the wrist" and urged the Donald Trump administration to appeal, citing concerns about "corruption in plain sight" amid reports of settlement talks between Google and Trump's legal team over a censorship lawsuit. While the company avoided divestiture, it must share search data with competitors, a move Google plans to appeal, arguing it risks exposing proprietary technology. Benzinga's Edge Stock Rankings show that GOOGL continues to demonstrate solid momentum over short, medium and long-term periods. Additional performance details are available here. Read Next: After Google's $2.7B Acquisition Of Founders And Staff, This AI Startup Abandons Large Language Model Plans And Shifts Focus Away From Chatbots Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of Benzinga Neuro and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors. Photo courtesy: jamesonwu1972/Shutterstock AAPLApple Inc$236.302.86%Stock Score Locked: Want to See it? Benzinga Rankings give you vital metrics on any stock - anytime. Reveal Full ScoreEdge RankingsMomentum36.37Growth29.98Quality70.34Value8.99Price TrendShortMediumLongOverviewGOOGAlphabet Inc$223.765.55%GOOGLAlphabet Inc$224.046.00%MSFTMicrosoft Corp$504.52-0.12%Market News and Data brought to you by Benzinga APIs

Google's AI rivals get a boost from data-sharing order, but tech giant far from routed

SAN FRANCISCO -- A rising group of artificial intelligence companies stand to gain from an antitrust ruling on Tuesday that ordered Alphabet's Google to share its invaluable search data with competitors. Matching Google's heft, though, will take time and huge resources, with no guarantees that any rival product will win as many users, experts said. While Google was spared the devastating outcome of having to sell its popular Chrome browser and Android operating system, U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta's ruling was a nod to regulators' efforts to level the playing field for companies who have invested billions to boost their AI business. "The emergence of GenAI changed the course of this case," Mehta wrote in his ruling. He said that tens of millions of people use generative AI chatbots like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Claude to gather information that they previously sought through internet search. While these chatbots are not yet close to replacing traditional search, the industry expects that developers will continue to add features to GenAI products to perform more like Google Search, he said. The data-sharing requirement does not alter Google's existing means of distribution, allowing the company to continue to pay the likes of Apple to make its search engine the default option. However, it lowers the barrier for competitors to develop and distribute their own alternatives to Google Search, experts said. These AI products, some say, pose a bigger threat to Google than the antitrust case. But development will take time and resources, giving Alphabet investors a measure of confidence in the near term. The current slate of AI search engines and browsers has not made a material dent in Google's market share. While ChatGPT, OpenAI's popular AI chatbot, has outpaced Google's offering, Gemini, in terms of users, Google has sought to counteract the effect through features like AI Overviews and AI Mode to keep users on its search engine. "It takes effort for competitors to rely on the syndication and indexes that Google can provide to build a consumer facing experience," said Deepak Mathivanan, an analyst with Cantor Fitzgerald. "And it would take a longer period of time for consumers to also embrace these new experiences." Indexing is how Google discovers, analyzes and stores website pages in its vast database for relevant search results, while propagating the reach of a website through republishing content. Even with access to Google data, it would be "astronomically expensive" for rivals to build the kind of product that could pry users away from Google, said Ben Bajarin, CEO of tech consulting firm Creative Strategies. Nevertheless, a number of well-capitalized AI startups have already poured significant amounts of venture capital funding towards doing exactly that. OpenAI offers a search product within ChatGPT and Reuters reported in July that is close to releasing a web browser to challenge Chrome. Startup Perplexity, backed by Nvidia, has already released its own AI-powered search and browser offerings, and is now negotiating to preload its browser onto some phone makers' devices. Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai expressed concerns during the trial in April that the data-sharing measures sought by the U.S. Department of Justice could enable Google's rivals to reverse-engineer its technology. By gaining insights into Google's market-leading IP, tech giants with giant coffers could make a new run at the search market. Microsoft might make a renewed push to improve the market share of Bing, and Apple, viewed as an AI laggard after failing to deliver on promised AI upgrades to key products like Siri, could try to enter the search market, Mathivanan said. Judge Mehta said in his order that allowing Google to continue paying other companies to promote its search engine "is more palatable now" because "established technology companies are making, and start-ups are receiving, hundreds of billions of dollars in capital to develop [generative AI] products that pose a threat to the primacy of traditional internet search."

Google ruling shows how tech can outpace antitrust enforcement

The rapid pace of development in the world of tech, particularly in AI, spurred a judge's cautious approach to curbing Google's online search monopoly, revealing a hurdle for U.S. antitrust enforcers' efforts to win their other cases against Big Tech. U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta ruled last year that Alphabet's Google holds an illegal monopoly, saying its dominance in online search "has gone unchallenged for well over a decade." But he declined on Tuesday to impose stringent requirements that the government had called for, saying the rise of AI companies in the past two years has already created competitive pressure. He noted that tens of millions of people use generative AI programs like ChatGPT, Perplexity and Claude in nearly the same way they look for information they previously found on Google. "Innovation is a hare while antitrust law is a tortoise," said Adam Kovacevich, head of the Big Tech-funded industry group Chamber of Progress. Courtney Radsch, director of the Center for Journalism and Liberty at the Open Markets Institute, an anti-monopoly group, said the ruling sends the wrong signal to the AI sector. "It's really problematic. Because it means antitrust as it is being wielded now is too backward-looking, and it's not looking at how to prevent illegal anticompetitive behavior," she said. Of the five high-profile ongoing antitrust lawsuits against Big Tech, several of which were initiated by investigations during the first Trump administration in 2019, the Google search case was seen as one of the strongest for U.S. antitrust enforcers. Now, Big Tech companies facing antitrust lawsuits are likely to use the ruling to their advantage, said John Kwoka, an economics professor at Northeastern University. "I think this gives an avenue, rightly or wrongly, for some of the other companies that are in the crosshairs to say that technology has made antitrust arguments irrelevant," he said. Antitrust regulators have homed in on the tech industry because they saw it as a crucial juncture between entrenching the dominance of big players and allowing startups to thrive. The U.S. sued Google in 2020 and 2023, Meta Platforms in 2020, Amazon in 2023 and Apple in 2024, and opened probes last year into Nvidia and Microsoft. In a process that takes years, antitrust cases typically proceed in two phases: a judge first decides whether the company engaged in anticompetitive conduct, and next tackles the question of what it should do to restore competition. Tuesday's ruling was the first of the cases to impose requirements on a Big Tech company. Mehta largely adopted Google's proposal. "The emergence of GenAI changed the course of this case," Mehta said in the ruling, calling it "astonishing" how quickly billions of dollars have flowed in to the nascent industry. ChatGPT was not released until 2022, two years into the case. A year later, when Google faced its first trial on the question of whether it held a monopoly, no witness cited AI as a near-term threat to search, the judge wrote. Now, AI companies are such a factor that the judge said they should be allowed to access Google's data to help boost competition with its search engine. Meta Platforms and Apple are likely to highlight the ruling in their own cases. For example, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission is seeking to make Meta sell off Instagram and WhatsApp, saying the acquisitions were aimed at neutralizing upstart competitors to Facebook's supremacy in the market for platforms where users share updates with friends and family. Meta has argued that the scene has shifted in the past five years since the case was brought, through the explosion in TikTok's popularity and users' growing preference for sharing in group chats instead of posting on social media platforms. Apple, which faces allegations of using restrictions on third-party developers to make it harder for iPhone users to switch, has argued antitrust enforcers are threatening innovation by seeking control of its product design. To be sure, even where judges are leery of going too far, pressure from antitrust cases has precipitated change. Ahead of trial this year, Google dropped restrictions on device makers who receive advertising revenue in exchange for making its search engine the default on new devices, allowing them to load competitor products. In 2019, Amazon turned off what antitrust enforcers later called a secret price-raising algorithm that cost Americans more than US$1 billion. Google has already gamed out the possibility of selling off advertising technology - something that antitrust enforcers will ask a different court to order it to do at trial later this month. "Judge Mehta's remedies decision signals why the courts cannot be the end-all, be-all of antitrust," said Elise Phillips, policy counsel at the Public Knowledge, a nonprofit that receives funding from Google and other tech companies, in a statement. "The American people need sector-specific legislation that addresses these harms and breaks down barriers of entry into online markets, fostering competition, innovation, and choice." ---

Google's AI rivals get a boost from data-sharing order, but tech giant far from routed

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) -A rising group of artificial intelligence companies stand to gain from an antitrust ruling on Tuesday that ordered Alphabet's Google to share its invaluable search data with competitors. Matching Google's heft, though, will take time and huge resources, with no guarantees that any rival product will win as many users, experts said. While Google was spared the devastating outcome of having to sell its popular Chrome browser and Android operating system, U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta's ruling was a nod to regulators' efforts to level the playing field for companies who have invested billions to boost their AI business. "The emergence of GenAI changed the course of this case," Mehta wrote in his ruling. He said that tens of millions of people use generative AI chatbots like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Claude to gather information that they previously sought through internet search. While these chatbots are not yet close to replacing traditional search, the industry expects that developers will continue to add features to GenAI products to perform more like Google Search, he said. The data-sharing requirement does not alter Google's existing means of distribution, allowing the company to continue to pay the likes of Apple to make its search engine the default option. However, it lowers the barrier for competitors to develop and distribute their own alternatives to Google Search, experts said. These AI products, some say, pose a bigger threat to Google than the antitrust case. But development will take time and resources, giving Alphabet investors a measure of confidence in the near term. MASSIVE CAPITAL NEEDED The current slate of AI search engines and browsers has not made a material dent in Google's market share. While ChatGPT, OpenAI's popular AI chatbot, has outpaced Google's offering, Gemini, in terms of users, Google has sought to counteract the effect through features like AI Overviews and AI Mode to keep users on its search engine. "It takes effort for competitors to rely on the syndication and indexes that Google can provide to build a consumer facing experience," said Deepak Mathivanan, an analyst with Cantor Fitzgerald. "And it would take a longer period of time for consumers to also embrace these new experiences." Indexing is how Google discovers, analyzes and stores website pages in its vast database for relevant search results, while propagating the reach of a website through republishing content. Even with access to Google data, it would be "astronomically expensive" for rivals to build the kind of product that could pry users away from Google, said Ben Bajarin, CEO of tech consulting firm Creative Strategies. Nevertheless, a number of well-capitalized AI startups have already poured significant amounts of venture capital funding towards doing exactly that. OpenAI offers a search product within ChatGPT and Reuters reported in July that is close to releasing a web browser to challenge Chrome. Startup Perplexity, backed by Nvidia, has already released its own AI-powered search and browser offerings, and is now negotiating to preload its browser onto some phone makers' devices. Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai expressed concerns during the trial in April that the data-sharing measures sought by the U.S. Department of Justice could enable Google's rivals to reverse-engineer its technology. By gaining insights into Google's market-leading IP, tech giants with giant coffers could make a new run at the search market. Microsoft might make a renewed push to improve the market share of Bing, and Apple, viewed as an AI laggard after failing to deliver on promised AI upgrades to key products like Siri, could try to enter the search market, Mathivanan said. Judge Mehta said in his order that allowing Google to continue paying other companies to promote its search engine "is more palatable now" because "established technology companies are making, and start-ups are receiving, hundreds of billions of dollars in capital to develop [generative AI] products that pose a threat to the primacy of traditional internet search." (Reporting by Kenrick Cai in San Francisco; Editing by Sayantani Ghosh and Sonali Paul)