Google’s AI rivals get a boost from search data-sharing order

SAN FRANCISCO — Arising group of artificial intelligence (AT) companies stand to gain from an antitrust ruling on Tuesday that ordered Alphabet’s Google to share its invaluable search data with competitors.

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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, US 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,” Mr. 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.