Not breaking up Google, CEO Sundar Pichai indicates

Alphabet and Google chief executive Sundar Pichai indicated that the company will not voluntarily restructure to pre-empt regulatory action in the backdrop of an antitrust trial against the internet major.

Some remedies in the antitrust case are far extreme than the initial scope of the ruling, said Pichai at the Bloomberg Tech Summit on Thursday. “Some of the proposed solutions are overreaching. The company would see how it plays out,” Pichai said.

At the end of May, US District Judge Amit Mehta heard the closing arguments in the remedies trial portion of an antitrust case to address Google’s monopoly in online search and advertising. A ruling is likely later this year.


While testifying in the matter, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman had said his company would buy Google Chrome if it were carved out. The company has opposed this course of action.

The Department of Justice and a coalition of states have sought directions from Google to share search data and stop multibillion-dollar payments to smartphone makers like Apple and Samsung to be the default search engine on new devices. As lighter remedies, Judge Mehta has proposed limited data sharing and ending the payments only if other measures do not increase competition.

Google disagrees with these rulings and is in the process of appealing against them, Pichai reiterated.

Google popular due to people’s choice

No one is using anything they don’t want to use, Pichai said, on concerns that Google’s artificial intelligence (AI) reinforced its domination of search and online ads.

“If you look at the success of ChatGPT… people literally have more choice than ever before. The reason people use Google (is) because they want to use it. And so I think I think we continue to innovate.”