Ok, so maybe AI isn’t changing everything

It often feels like AI is changing everything about the tech business—rewriting the rules of coding, swamping social media with deepfakes, even changing how companies are born. It’s happening so fast that even the most powerful tech firms are pleading helplessness. Google, in particular, has had some success arguing that it’s no longer the titan it was because AI is so quickly blowing up the old power structure of internet search. But the “AI is changing everything” argument may have its limits, as well. And the case unfolding in a Virginia federal court might help establish just where those limits are. The case is the big remedies trial in Google’s advertising antitrust lawsuit. The Justice Department is trying to force the company to spin off at least one of its ad platforms; Google, of course, wants to do no such thing. One notable character in the drama is AI. Judge Leonie Brinkema brought up AI on the trial’s opening day, asking whether the technology was transforming the ad market enough to resolve some of the competition issues in the next two to three years. An ad tech executive responded on the stand that it wouldn’t. Several other DOJ witnesses testified that AI hasn’t significantly changed display advertising, nor Google’s dominance in the area. Google, of course, wants to tell the opposite story—if AI is poised to upend its ad market, the judge will likely take it much easier on the company.