Will AI disrupt Google’s dominance of search?

In a recent episode of the podcast “Acquired,” venture capitalists and hosts Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal argued that the horrible rollout of Google’s Bard AI chatbot in February 2023 — which led the company’s stock to drop 8% in a day — was a blessing in disguise.

- By Lean NYLEN

That’s because two years later, after a U.S. federal judge ruled that Google had illegally monopolized online search, he also concluded that the specter of artificial intelligence would ensure the company faced new competition. Google didn’t need to change much about its business, the judge ruled, in part because the looming threat of AI would help solve the problem.

“As flatfooted as Google was when ChatGPT happened, if the outcome of this is they avoid a Microsoft-level distraction and damage to their business from a U.S. federal court monopoly judgment,” Rosenthal said, it was “worth it.” “It actually saves Google.”

In his August 2024 decision, Judge Amit Mehta held that while the tech giant, owned by Alphabet Inc., came to dominate because of its superior search engine, it stayed on top in part because it pays billions of dollars a year to rivals like Apple Inc. and Samsung Electronics Inc. to maintain the status quo.

A year later, he issued another 230-page ruling about how to resolve that illegal conduct, holding that Google would be required to do almost nothing different. The search giant would not be forced to sell off its popular Chrome web browser — as the Justice Department sought — or to stop paying those billions to ensure its search engine remains on top.

“The emergence of GenAI changed the course of this case,” Mehta wrote. No one at the original monopolization trial testified that AI would upend the search industry, he said, while the 2025 remedies hearing was chock-full of witnesses who said as much.