Google might have to sell Chrome — and OpenAI wants to buy it

It feels like all the major tech companies are practically living in courtrooms these days—but at the same time, it doesn’t seem like much actually changes. Decisions get made, then overturned, and it takes forever for anything to really impact users. Right now, Google is at risk of being broken up and sold off in pieces—and if that actually happens, OpenAI has already told the judge it would be interested in buying.

OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, currently has no partnership with Google. Apparently, it tried to strike a deal last year to integrate Google’s search tech into ChatGPT, but that fell through. Instead, OpenAI is now building its own search index—though it’s turning out to be a way bigger project than they expected.

Originally, the company thought its own search index would handle 80% of ChatGPT’s queries by the end of this year. Now, it believes hitting that milestone could take several more years. That, along with “significant quality issues” in the search tech it’s currently using, is why OpenAI says it would consider buying Chrome if it ever goes up for sale.

Since Chrome is used by hundreds of millions as their main browser, this would definitely have an impact if it actually happened. What would OpenAI do with Chrome after acquiring it? No one knows for sure, but you’d have to guess they’d rebrand it and merge it with ChatGPT to create some kind of AI-driven browsing, searching, and image-generating powerhouse. Maybe even toss in that rumored OpenAI social network while they’re at it.

Of course, Google is fighting back against the ruling that officially calls it a “monopolist” in online search, so this battle isn’t over yet. But with Google holding around 90% of the search engine market, it’s pretty hard to argue it’s not a monopoly. Let’s just hope it doesn’t take another five years to see how this all plays out.