Artificial intelligence (AI) and its role in the future of search was reportedly spotlighted Friday (May 30) during closing arguments over remedies in the Justice Department’s antitrust case against Google.
The government argued that the court’s remedies for Google’s dominance in search should include curbs on the company’s ability to promote its AI product, Gemini, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported Friday.
“The reason we are so focused on GenAI is because that is the new search access point,” Justice Department lawyer David Dahlquist said, according to the report.
Earlier court testimony showed that Google is paying manufacturers to pre-install Gemini on their devices, and the Justice Department has said that this is the company’s attempt to monopolize a new form of search and should be prohibited, per the report.
The Department also wants Google to be required to share its search data with AI companies because that would enable those companies to compete more effectively with Gemini, according to the report.
Judge Amit Mehta questioned that proposal Friday, saying, per the report: “It seems to me you want to bring in this other technology into this definition of a general search engine market that I’m not sure quite fits.”
Reuters reported Friday that Google attorney John Schmidtlein said at the hearing that Google no longer enters into exclusive agreements with device manufacturers, so those companies are free to load any search and AI apps on their new products.
Addressing the Justice Department’s argument that Google should be required to share its search data with AI companies, Schmidtlein said that would be inappropriate when a company like OpenAI is already a leader in its field, according to the report.
“Coming to Google and asking Google for a handout when they are the market leader seems completely disproportionate to what this case is about,” Schmidtlein said, per the report.
The remedies in this antitrust case could include forcing Google to sell its Chrome browser, stop paying Apple to be its default search engine and sharing data with competitors.
Those are among the remedies the Justice Department has argued are necessary to improve competition in online search.
