OpenAI would be interested in buying Google’s Chrome browser if a federal court orders it to be spun off, the head of ChatGPT said in a court hearing Tuesday.
“Yes, we would, as would many other parties,” Nick Turley, OpenAI’s ChatGPT chief said in response to a question about whether the company would seek to buy Google’s browser.
Turley was called by the Justice Department to testify as part of a three-week trial aimed at determining what changes Alphabet Inc.’s Google must make to its business after a federal judge found last year that the company monopolized the search market. Judge Amit Mehta is set to decide by August what business practices Google must modify. The Justice Department has asked that Google be forced to divest Chrome.
Currently, OpenAI’s chatbot, ChatGPT, has an extension in Google’s Chrome browser available for users to download. But having Chrome be more deeply integrated into OpenAI would allow for a better product, Turley said.
‘Incredible Experience’
“You could offer a really incredible experience” if ChatGPT was integrated into Chrome, he said. We would “have the ability to introduce users into what an AI first experience looks like.”
Turley said one of the company’s most difficult issues today is with distribution. While the company has reached a deal to integrate ChatGPT into Apple Inc.’s iPhone, it hasn’t had any success with Android smartphone manufacturers, he said.
Earlier, a Google executive acknowledged that the company began paying Samsung Electronics Co. in January to pre-install the Gemini AI app on its phones. That agreement isn’t exclusive, but Turley said OpenAI didn’t make much headway in negotiations with the South Korean company because of Google’s ability to outspend the startup.
“It was not a lack of trying,” he said. “We never got to a point where we could discuss concrete terms.”
‘Deep Worry’
Later in his testimony, Turley said he has “deep worry that we may be shut out” by some of the bigger companies in the market like Google.
We have powerful competitors “who control the access points for how people discover products, including our product. People discover via a browser or via an app store,” he said. “Real choice drives competition. Users should be able to pick.”
ChatGPT, which was launched in November 2022, quickly became a viral success as one of the fastest-growing consumer software products of all time. In February, OpenAI said it has more than 400 million weekly active users. Turley said the company exceeded its 2024 goals for weekly active users, but didn’t give numbers.
This week, Google began squaring off against the Justice Department and dozens of state attorney generals over what changes Mehta will order to prevent the company from monopolizing the online search market.
The Justice Department’s proposed remedies include forcing Google to sell its Chrome browser, license search data to rivals and halt paid contracts for exclusive positions on apps and devices. Google says the government’s proposal would hurt consumers by making everyday Google products worse, and that it would harm US leadership in tech.
If the court orders Google to sell off its popular web browser, it would mark the first court ordered breakup of a major US company since AT&T’s split in the 1980s.
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