DOJ Questions Google’s AI Tactics

Is Google up to its old tricks in the new world of artificial intelligence? That’s what the government alleges. The Justice Department made a big deal in court today—as it argued how Google should be overhauled to remedy its search monopoly—with the charge that the tech giant was repeating its past sins in search in an effort to become dominant in the nascent field of AI. (For our detailed coverage of the trial, see here, here and here.)

Most strikingly, the government’s lawyer on Monday cited the fact that Google has struck a deal with device maker Samsung to ensure that the app for its Gemini AI chatbot comes preloaded on new Samsung phones, according to my colleague Erin Woo, who is at the courthouse covering the trial. Google used precisely that kind of distribution deal in search to maintain its edge in that market—most notably through a very pricey agreement with Apple. And when the judge ruled last August that Google had an illegal monopoly in search, he found that its distribution deals were a key reason.