When Judge Amit Mehta ruled in United States v. Google last week, the headline was simple: Google was found to have monopoly power in search, but the court declined to break it up. Exclusive contracts were barred, some data-sharing was ordered, but Android, Chrome, and the ad machine all remain intact. Most importantly, Apple’s $20 billion a year in payments from Google to be the default search engine on iPhones survived untouched.

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Why the restraint? In a twist, Mehta pointed to the rise of generative AI—naming OpenAI’s ChatGPT—as evidence that competition is already reshaping the market. The very technology that could have strengthened the case for dismantling Google was invoked as a reason to preserve it.

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A Win for the Incumbents

Economists often remind us that history shows breakups can unlock shareholder value. Standard Oil’s fragments outperformed the original. AT&T’s divestiture created a wave of telecom growth. Even the antitrust pressure on Microsoft in the 1990s cleared space for Google itself to rise. But instead of following that pattern, this ruling gave investors certainty. Alphabet stock surged 9 percent in a day, adding more than $200 billion in market cap. Apple rose nearly 4 percent, buoyed by the preservation of its default-search deal. Collectively, Big Tech added more than $400 billion in value within days.

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For both companies, this was more than relief—it was an opening. Google avoided the nightmare of structural separation and now has a clear runway to fold its Gemini AI system into Search, YouTube, and Android. Apple kept its steady flow of search revenue while buying time to refine its own AI ambitions. Both left the courthouse stronger, positioned to dominate not just search, but AI itself.

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The Paradox of AI

That outcome is deeply ironic. Generative AI requires enormous data sets, computing power and distribution channels—precisely the structural advantages that justify antitrust remedies. By that logic, AI should have made the case for breaking up Google even stronger. Instead, its existence was treated as proof of competition. The technology that highlights the risks of concentration became the shield that protected it.

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Investors Cheer, Economists Worry

For investors, the case removed a cloud of uncertainty and released hundreds of billions in market value. But many economists see a missed opportunity. Breaking monopolies has historically generated more innovation, more consumer choice and even more shareholder value over time. By stopping short, the court may have secured short-term gains at the expense of long-term dynamism.

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The Bigger Picture

The ruling signals a broader trend in antitrust: courts are leaning away from structural remedies and toward behavioral rules and data-sharing mandates. For digital giants, this is far easier to absorb. Google and Apple can comply while continuing to consolidate their advantage. The real disruption, then, may not come from regulators but from technology itself.

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Yet that is the central paradox. If AI truly changes how we search for and consume information, Google’s dominance will erode from within. But by sparing the company from structural change, the court ensured that Google and Apple are best positioned to capture that disruption themselves.

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Closing Thought

This was not the breakup moment that history books will celebrate. Instead, it was a reminder of how incumbents can turn disruption into reinforcement. Google and Apple should thank OpenAI—not just for proving that competition exists, but for giving them a stronger grip on the very future that was supposed to challenge them.

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