Nick Turley, OpenAI's director of ChatGPT, said the company would buy Chrome if the browser were to be separated from Google.
During the April 22 trial between the US Department of Justice (DOJ) and Google, Nick Turley was asked if he would buy Chrome. "Like many others, we would if given the opportunity," he said. "Owning Chrome allows OpenAI to deliver a great user experience, so people know what an AI-first browser looks like."
OpenAI was one of the parties called by the US Department of Justice to testify in the three-week trial between the agency and Alphabet, Google's parent company. Last year, the court ruled that Google had a monopoly on search, and this trial will determine how to handle it, such as possibly breaking the company into several smaller companies, including the Chrome browser.
ChatGPT is currently available on Chrome as an extension. But in court, Turley said that integrating ChatGPT deeper into Chrome would allow for a better product. “The combination could provide a truly incredible new experience,” he said.
OpenAI’s biggest challenge right now, Turley said, is distribution. While it has reached a deal to integrate ChatGPT into iPhones, the company has yet to do the same with Android.
In January, a Google executive said it paid Samsung to integrate Gemini into Galaxy phones. The deal was non-exclusive, but Turley mentioned the story to emphasize that OpenAI could not do the same because Google’s financial resources were much greater.
In several emails presented by Turley at trial, OpenAI first contacted Google in July 2024 to discuss integrating ChatGPT deeper into Chrome. A month later, Google declined because “there were too many competitors.”
“We do not currently have a partnership with Google,” Turley said.
Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Following last week’s ruling on monopoly and advertising dominance, Google is set to appear in court this week on a search monopoly case. The company said the DOJ’s proposal, if approved, “would harm consumers,” by making Google products “worse,” and would also damage America’s leadership in the technology industry.
Chrome has been the dominant browser on the Internet for years. As of February, Google’s browser had a 65.55% market share on desktops and 65.92% on mobile devices, according to data from analytics firm StatCounter. If Google were to sell Chrome, it would be the first time a court has ordered the breakup of a major US technology company since AT&T was broken up in the 1980s, according to Bloomberg.
(via Reuters, TechCrunch)