OpenAI would be interested in purchasing the Chrome Internet browser if Google were forced to divest it as proposed by the US Department of Justice in a monopolization lawsuit, the head of the company's ChatGPT product said today. The testimony by Nicholas Turley came on the second day of an evidentiary proceeding in the DOJ's Internet search monopolization lawsuit against Google — a case in which the government is asking a US federal court to order the forced sale of Chrome as well as an order to keep away from the browser market for the next five years.
OpenAI would be interested in purchasing Google's Chrome Internet browser if the tech giant were forced to divest it as proposed by the US Department of Justice in a monopolization lawsuit, the head of the company's ChatGPT product said today. The testimony by Nicholas Turley came on the second day of an evidentiary proceeding in the DOJ's Internet search monopolization lawsuit against Google — a case in which the government is asking a US federal court to order the forced sale of Chrome as well as an order to keep away from the browser market for the next five years (see here).
Distribution is a core part of OpenAI's product, Turley said during direct examination by Austin Ostiguy, one of the attorneys representing the multistate coalition suing Google. If OpenAI were to reach a distribution agreement with an "independent Chrome" in the US, that relationship would "absolutely" provide value to OpenAI and its customers, he said.
According to Turley, most users don't even think about what search engine to use or how to obtain the real-time information they need. Users will just type into their browser bar, which for most people is Chrome, he said. Having a distribution agreement that allows those users to discover the Open AI product would ensure that they encounter it, can select it and can have a very frictionless way of interacting with ChatGPT and the "super assistant" tomorrow, he said.
A super assistant can actually do many of the things that users would manually browse for previously. "This would offer Chrome the ability to on-ramp users onto a future like that," Turley said. "That's an amazing future, and that being where users are, you could imagine very, very deep integrations like that over time."
As for the commercial aspect of what an arrangement like this would look like, the OpenAI executive said it would come down to the specifics of "how independent Chrome is incentivized."
"For example, independent Chrome can continue to partner with Google, either in the US or internationally. Then we may be in a similar situation that we were in with Samsung, where we could be outspent dramatically... there would be a question of 'OK, what is the incentive structure then?' and 'would we be competitive?'" Turley said.
Google is back in a Washington, DC federal court for a three-week remedy trial in which the government aims to dismantle parts of the company. The lawsuit — brought jointly by the DOJ, 49 US states, two territories and the District of Columbia in October 2020 — underwent a three-month liability trial in 2023. US District Judge Amit Mehta found Google to be an illegal monopolist in the Internet search market and search text ads market in August 2024. The government also seeks further “contingent” structural relief through the forced sale of the Android mobile operating system (see here).
— Playing with 'new kids on the block’ —
The OpenAI executive, who spent a little over three hours on the witness stand, also said Google's search and distribution capabilities are "critical" and that as his company set out to build its own super assistant, it tried to work with Google but the tech giant refused such a partnership.
Turley was referring to having reached out to Google to access its search API, a software interface that allows different applications to communicate and exchange data.
Having a third-party API provider is "critical," at least in the near and medium term, as OpenAI builds out its own index, the executive said. OpenAI ran into "significant quality issues and other issues" with another unnamed company it has a partnership with, he said. OpenAI soon realized that these quality issues existed when it directly compared the company it was partnering with to what was available on Google.com, he added.
Microsoft first invested $1 billion in Open AI in 2019, starting a partnership that involves a multi-year, multibillion-dollar investment and agreement to collaborate across AI supercomputing and research. The US software company is the largest investor in OpenAI, having now injected more than $13 billion into the company.
Having access to Google's search index data would favorably impact OpenAI's product roadmap, Turley said. And having access to high-quality search providers is a "critical piece" as it allows OpenAI to offer users another way of interacting with real-time information and getting their questions answered, on top of the way that they've had for decades now, he said.
Turley said it occurred to him that OpenAI didn't have to exclusively work with the company it has partnered with. "It would be amazing to just partner with Google as well, and that's how that idea was born... what if they were to enter a relationship with us that would be amazing for the product, and we therefore reached out."
On Aug. 15, 2024, OpenAI's head of business operations and corporate development, Michelle Fradin, wrote to a Google executive, according to an exhibit shown by the government. Fradin sought to follow up on discussions over using Google's Search API to help power OpenAI's SearchGPT prototype and search functionality.
Fradin wrote Google in late July 2024 about using Google's Search API, saying it "would be similar to how Google works with Meta to provide search features and link grounding in Meta's AI chat."
Public statements made by Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg described it as a non-commercial or very low-cost partnership between the two companies, according to the e-mail.
"We understand that Google considered OpenAI's request and discussed it among Google's senior leadership team in the past week, but on August 13, communicated to us that Google had reached a final decision against a partnership (commercial or otherwise) with OpenAI for the Google Search API, saying it would involve too many complexities. Would you please provide more detail about the complexities that Google identified that it believed would preclude a mutually beneficial partnership?" Fradin wrote in the e-mail.
"Google never responded in writing, though verbally I know there was a decline, so we never got to talking about economics with Google, to my disappointment," Turley testified.
The OpenAI executive hoped to obtain a commercial arrangement that would be viable for the company. "I was aware that Google might not be incentivized to offer us good terms, given the competitive nature of some of our offerings," he said.
Turley pointed to Zuckerberg's statements that there wasn't much money flowing either way and hoped to replicate the same arrangement between OpenAI and Google, but he realized that the main difference is that Meta is a much larger company. "We're still the new kids on the block."
— Distribution of ChatGPT is 'existential' —
Turley also sought Google out for a distribution partnership which he said was a "core part" of OpenAI's product.
"Put another way, we could have the best offering in theory. But if people can't discover it, or if people can't find it even after they've discovered it, or if there's significant hurdles in getting to the product, we don't have the best product, and that's why a high-level distribution matters for us," he explained.
The converse is also true where, if other products have distribution and OpenAI does not, then consumers may perceive that those others are the only products available to them. "So, this is very critical, and I think I've argued to our teams internally numerous times that it is, in fact, existential," he said.
OpenAI has not been able to gain any distribution through partnerships with Android phone manufacturers, Turley said. "It was not a lack of trying... we never, unfortunately, got to a point where we could discuss concrete terms with such a provider."
Today, the vast majority of OpenAI's distribution comes from its own services, including the ChatGPT website, the iOS and Android mobile apps, the Windows app and Mac OS app. OpenAI has also begun to integrate ChatGPT into third-party services, with the most prominent example today being the integration with Siri in iOS, Turley said.
OpenAI would have also been interested in a distribution partnership with Samsung, Turley said. But "[w]e don't think we can afford the terms."
— Google’s new agreements —
Earlier in the day, Mehta heard testimony from Peter Fitzgerald, vice president of global partnerships for platforms and devices at Google. The Google executive was an adverse witness for the government, and he was questioned about the tech giant’s plan to move to a new revenue sharing agreement related to the distribution of the Android operating system.
Veronica Onyema, counsel for the DOJ, showed Fitzgerald an exhibit which said, “Some of you may remember that we had been – up until early August – been planning to move to a new Android commercial incentive agreement framework with carriers (nicknamed ACIA).”
ACIA stands for “Android Commercial Incentive Agreement,” and generative AI formed an important part of the deals.
“We made the tough decision to put that work on pause six weeks ago... While we still believe in the principles behind the framework, the DOJ case has catalyzed new and more expansive thinking about the Android business model,” according to the exhibit.
The text is part of a Google document titled Business Council Talk Track and was sent in late September 2024, roughly two months after Google was found to be an illegal monopolist.
Google’s previous agreement was called the “Mobile Application Distribution Agreements," or MADA, which has lapsed in the US.
Fitzgerald testified that discussions with Google’s lawyers led to putting the ACIA on hold.
During cross-examination by a Google attorney, Fitzgerald said the tech giant’s partners such as Samsung have “a way to exit” the agreement annually at the end of each calendar year. Google’s partners are also free to work with any and all generative AI services other than Google’s Gemini.
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