Final day of Google’s antitrust trial hinges on AI

The question for the courts last day of closing arguments was this: Are AI competitors also operating in the search market?

Both sides argued they weren’t, as it could interfere with long standing DOJ arguments that Google is a search monopoly, and for Google looking to avoid scrutiny of its recent behavior.

No one is out-Googling Google
— Generative AI companies are not trying to out-Google Google, Google attorney John Schmidtlein said, according to Axios. — They are not general search engines… they are something else.

The DOJ also agreed, saying that AI companies fall outside the market, but that could certainly change in the future.

The prosecutors further said that their remedies, such as stopping moneyed deals with the likes of Samsung, Apple and Firefox, and divesting from Chrome, are designed to stop Google from using it’s dominance to stifle AI-based rivals in the future, according to Quartz.

Power comes from defaults, properties
They also held that Google’s position comes from entrenched defaults, like paying Apple to default to Google, and paying Samsung for Gemini, as well as getting 30% of search from Chrome, and not from making superior products.

Those entrenched defaults have certainly helped Google in their quest for AI dominance, letting them do things like replacing Assistant with Gemini on Android, using the web’s most valuable real estate to put AI search on the front page, and also to leverage buttons in Chrome and on Gmail.

AI might soften remedies
The latest number for Gemini usage is at 350 million, but the models are now being incorporated within the entire Google ecosystem and counting usage may be next to impossible.

Should the judge find that AI is a competitor to traditional search, he might rule more favorably for Google, the thinking goes, because the markets and competition will sort it out by themselves, according to Quartz.

But that would omit just how aggressively Google is using all the tools in its box to promote AI these days.

Read more: Court reports from Axios and Ars Technica, and some thoughts from Quartz.