The rapid rise of AI technology has helped tip the scales in Alphabet’s favour, sparing it from the worst-case outcome of an enforced breakup by the U.S. government of its most valuable product. 

In an irony hard to ignore, it is the frenzied takeup of Sam Altman’s OpenAI consumer launch that played a leading role in saving the biggest asset of its biggest rival.

Generative AI had “changed the course of this case,” Judge Amit Mehta wrote in his remedies ruling on Tuesday in the District Court in Washington D.C., just a year after he found Google to be an monopolist in Internet search and that it acted like one to maintain it.

Because of AI’s advances, the judge decided to soften the remedies that would apply to his earlier tough finding, with Google to entirely avoid forced sell-offs or mandated syndication of its most valuable data assets.

This case brought by the U.S. Department of Justice was by far the most existential legal challenge Google had faced. Yet Google emerged with a decisive victory few would have predicted when it began as a slightly different case five years ago in an entirely different consumer landscape and when lawmakers and competitors were baying for Google blood.

“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,” Judge Mehta wrote. “Not exactly a judge’s forte.” 

Yet he went on: “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.” 

So, in short, he saw no need now for a heavy interventionist hand. 

For media companies, however, the intervening years have only heightened the complexity of surviving in Google’s search-dominated ecosystem that has become a race to the bottom of AI summaries and click-free answers. 

Here’s what media executives need to know about the court’s decision.

10 takeaways

1. Google’s bigger-than-expected win: No breakup had been seriously expected but nor was a win of this scale. There’s no forced sale of Chrome or Android. Alphabet keeps its crown jewels: the most valuable part of search data, all its browser distribution, and device partnerships.
2. Penalties are a light touch: Google can keep doing deals with device makers (e.g., Apple) as long as they don’t require exclusivity; it must stop bundling its apps as a condition of its payments to third parties; and it must syndicate limited parts of its search index to rivals.
3. Google keeps its secret sauce: Google is not required to syndicate its most valuable search data — its knowledge graph (people, places, things) that make up the Web site ranking signals. So ChatGPT, Anthropic, Perplexity, and others that had hoped for a loosening of access receive no prize. 
4. The U.S. Department of Justice got little: There’s no ban on default payments to Apple and others. No mandatory browser choice screens for consumers. No remedies to forestall Google using its search strength to dominate AI. 
5. Appeals are unlikely: Google had said it would appeal last year’s judgment that it was an illegal monopolist, but with such a comprehensive win on penalties, it may decide against it. The DoJ expressed disappointment but would face a steep climb to convince the court to toughen the penalties.
6. Search era is in decline anyway: The ruling killed any media company hopes for a rapid growth of alternatives to Google Search. Google Search not only survived but will continue to disrupt itself to mimic the answer offerings from its AI rivals: fewer links, more summaries, less referred traffic. 
7. Antitrust arguments nixed by change: The rise in semantic chat and answer engine alternatives that undermined the DoJ case advanced rapidly during the trial. AI browsers such as The Browser Company’s Arc Search or Perplexity’s Comet didn’t even exist during the main hearings in the case (the third quarter, 2023). 
8. While we’re using the Web differently, SEO’s core remains: The ruling effectively locks in the same Google’s Internet index data that fueled the Web’s past 20 years as the foundation for the AI era, too — at least in the short term. The Information revealed OpenAI’s models already use Google Search data scraped by a third party.  
9. Gemini has something its rival lacks: Evidence in court showed Google’s Gemini had less than 25% of daily active users of OpenAI’s ChatGPT. On another metric, however, Google is years ahead. It has thousands of publisher agreements and has started converting these assets into Gemini deals in some countries. 
10. Search was the warm-up act: Search was Google’s most important antitrust case, yet always the one seen as most likely Google would win given its market is in upheaval. Its other antitrust case, where it was found to hold a monopoly on ad tech, starts hearings for remedy submissions on September 22. Google’s chances are much slimmer there.

Reaction round-up

Google: “The decision recognises how much the industry has changed through the advent of AI. Competition is intense and people can easily choose the services they want,” wrote its vice president/regulatory affairs, Lee-Anne Mulholland, while also voicing concerns about the nature of the proposed data-sharing requirements.

U.S. Department of Justice: Assistant Attorney General Abigail Slater: “We proved in court that competition had been frozen in place for two decades in Internet search.” She said the DoJ would weigh up whether the remedies go far enough.

News Media Alliance, U.S.: President and CEO of News Media Alliance, Danielle Coffey:“Judge Mehta’s ruling did not address Google’s ability to cement its market power through AI. Publishers are forced to give away content to remain in search — a no-win scenario. Opt-out rights for AI use are critical to preserving a fair, open Internet.”

Academic: Jim Jansen, AI scientist, Qatar Computing Research Institute: “A decade ago the [Google Search] data would have been gold. Today, much of it is noise. It’s hard to know how much rivals like Microsoft or OpenAI [would] really benefit.”

Antitrust expert: Rebecca Haw Allensworth, Vanderbilt Law School: “Even weak remedies can chill a company. Microsoft’s case shows that. The shadow of antitrust scrutiny matters.”

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