OpenAI is keen to buy Chrome if the court forced Google to sell.
👉 Background: Last week, a US court ruled that Google has an illegal monopoly both in the ad tech industry (alongside the monopoly that a US Judge had previously find it has in online search). And while it’s not clear what the outcome of the finding will be… it could result in the break-up of Google.
👉 What happened: Now, OpenAI has entered the chat because its head of product has said that OpenAI would be keen to buy Chrome if the court forced Google to sell. The company says it previously offered to integrate Google search into ChatGPT, but Google said no way.
👉 What else: In the hypothetical case that OpenAI bought Chrome, it could be a game-changer for their growth. It would OpenAI them to skip the intermediary – like Google, in order to get customers, because it would have its own vertical integration.
What's the key learning?
💡Vertical integration happens when a company controls multiple stages of its supply chain or product delivery. For example, for a coffee company, vertical integration would mean they own the farm, the roastery and the café.
💡 In tech, it’s when a company owns key parts of the value chain. For example, it could be the back-end software, the customer-facing platform, the data and even the hardware. Google is the poster child for vertical integration. It owns:
That kind of integration is powerful — but it’s also what regulators argue is anti-competitive.
💡On the other hand, OpenAI right now relies on partnerships to reach users like through Microsoft’s Edge browser or iOS integrations. So, if OpenAI acquired Chrome, it would gain a direct user base… but, with its 400 million weekly active users, it kinda feels like it would start building a vertically integrated empire of its own.
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