Google Saved From Breakup in Antitrust Case by AI Threat

Alphabet Inc.’s Google, found by the US last year to have a monopoly in online search, avoided the most severe outcomes because the judge in the case concluded that its business was already under a growing threat — from AI.

“The emergence of GenAI changed the course of this case,” Judge Amit Mehta wrote Tuesday in his 223-page ruling. While generative AI chatbots like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Claude aren’t yet close to replacing Google search, they “may yet prove to be game changers,” meaning the court should sit back and let the market work, he explained.

Google, which the ...