Google fights to prevent search remedies from inhibiting its AI ambitions

A court order will require Google to scale back some of its more aggressive tactics to get its search engine in front of as many users as possible, but it’s still fighting to make sure new restrictions won’t limit its AI expansion. 

At a hearing in a federal courthouse in DC on Wednesday, Google attorney John Schmidtlein told Judge Amit Mehta that he should not prevent the company from bundling its Gemini AI app with other Google apps like YouTube and Maps, Bloomberg reported. Mehta expressed concern that requiring manufacturers to install its AI app in order to access Maps and YouTube would give Google “leverage” to better position Gemini, Bloomberg wrote. That’s similar to what Mehta found Google did to edge out rivals from key distribution channels for search. 

Google and the Justice Department were back in court to hammer out the details of Mehta’s final order on remedies to restore competition to the search market he ruled that Google illegally monopolized. While Mehta rejected the DOJ’s most ambitious proposals like spinning out Chrome, he did grant some other suggestions about sharing search information with rivals and barring it from making exclusive contracts for distributing several of its products. 

But Google reportedly argued that AI is different, and Mehta shouldn’t impose restrictions in an emerging market as the table is being set, comparing a potential Google Gemini bundle with Microsoft’s use of CoPilot in its Office products. Maps and YouTube aren’t “monopoly product[s],” Schmidtlein reportedly told the court, and when it comes to the AI market, “there’s no notion that Google has to date gained monopoly or market power.”