A judge ruled that AI’s disruption of search spared Google from being broken apart in a major antitrust case.
Google has avoided being broken apart after a US court ruled that the rise of artificial intelligence has transformed the search industry, easing concerns about its market dominance.
Judge Amit Mehta’s 230-page opinion, delivered on September 2, concluded a five-year antitrust battle in which the Department of Justice sought to force Google to divest its Chrome browser or Android system. Instead, the court ordered Google to share some data with rivals and established an oversight committee to ensure compliance.
“The emergence of generative AI changed the course of this case,” Mehta wrote, noting that AI-powered chatbots are reshaping how people find information online. He dedicated 30 pages of his ruling to explaining AI’s impact on the search market.
Experts say Google’s vast ecosystem, including Gmail, YouTube, Maps and Docs, remains powerful, but AI may open space for new competitors. “Those tools will also get better with Google’s AI technologies,” Jinjun Xiong of the University at Buffalo told DW.