The DOJ wants info on Google’s AI strategy to bust up its search monopoly

The Justice Department wants to learn more about Google’s AI strategy in order to determine what kinds of changes it will ask for to resolve Google’s monopoly in search.

The request came during a hearing on Friday in a federal court in Washington, DC, where Google and the DOJ met before Judge Amit Mehta, who recently ruled in favor of the DOJ and agreed that Google is an illegal monopolist. Mehta’s decision officially ended the first phase of the trial, which focused on whether Google is liable under antitrust law. Now the parties are moving onto the remedies phase, where the government will propose solutions to correct the illegal behavior and restore competition to the market.

DOJ attorney David Dahlquist told the court that the government needs more discovery to understand the state of Google’s business in recent years. The trial covered deals Google made up to the early part of this decade, including a longstanding agreement to provide search services on Apple products. But the DOJ’s research wrapped up just as Google — alongside would-be competitors like Microsoft — was beginning to push a new kind of search product built around generative AI. As Dahlquist mentioned, Google’s name for its AI has even changed since last year’s trial: it was Bard then, and now it’s Gemini, so the team is requesting more information about Google’s newer business decisions, including around AI.

The parties still haven’t agreed on a timeline for the remedies phase, which will include another trial-like proceeding. But Mehta indicated he’d like those arguments to take place in the first half of next year. While nothing’s set in stone, they expect it to take much less time than the 10-week trial that began last September — more like a week or two. The parties are expected to file a new scheduling proposal by next Friday.