AI Is 'Biggest Shift of Our Lifetimes', Says Google Boss

 Google CEO Sundar Pichai delivers a speech during the Artificial Intelligence (AI) Action Summit, at the Grand Palais, in Paris, on February 10, 2025. (AFP)
Google CEO Sundar Pichai delivers a speech during the Artificial Intelligence (AI) Action Summit, at the Grand Palais, in Paris, on February 10, 2025. (AFP)
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AI Is 'Biggest Shift of Our Lifetimes', Says Google Boss

 Google CEO Sundar Pichai delivers a speech during the Artificial Intelligence (AI) Action Summit, at the Grand Palais, in Paris, on February 10, 2025. (AFP)
Google CEO Sundar Pichai delivers a speech during the Artificial Intelligence (AI) Action Summit, at the Grand Palais, in Paris, on February 10, 2025. (AFP)

Artificial intelligence (AI) is a "fundamental rewiring of technology" that will act as an "accelerant of human ingenuity", Google boss Sundar Pichai will say Monday at a global AI summit in Paris.

"We're still in the early days of the AI platform shift, and yet we know it will be the biggest of our lifetimes," Pichai was to say according to excerpts from his speech to global leaders and tech industry chiefs seen by AFP.

The Google boss will highlight imminent applications for AI technology such as detecting the emergence of wildfires in satellite images, as well as announce a partnership for detecting and treating cancer with the French capital's Institut Curie.

Demis Hassabis, the head of Google's DeepMind AI research lab, also hailed the technology's potential at an event on Sunday in Google's Paris offices.

“Material science, mathematics, fusion, there is almost no area of science that won’t benefit from these AI tools," the Nobel chemistry laureate said.

Pichai said this month that Google would plough $75 billion into capital investments this year, mostly in AI.

"With AI, we have the chance to democratize access (to a new technology) from the start, and to ensure that the digital divide doesn't become an AI divide," he was to say Tuesday.

The concept of a "digital divide" refers to the gap between people with or without easy access to and familiarity with the internet and modern communications technologies.

"Every generation worries that the new technology will change the lives of the next generation for the worse -- and yet it's almost always the opposite," Pichai's text read.

Playing down today's fears about the impact of AI, he will insist that "We must not let our own bias for the present get in the way of the future. We have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to improve lives at the scale of AI."



Google Holds Illegal Monopolies in Ad Tech, US Judge Finds, Allowing US to Seek Breakup

A man walks past Google's offices in London's Kings Cross area, on Aug. 10, 2024. (AP)
A man walks past Google's offices in London's Kings Cross area, on Aug. 10, 2024. (AP)
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Google Holds Illegal Monopolies in Ad Tech, US Judge Finds, Allowing US to Seek Breakup

A man walks past Google's offices in London's Kings Cross area, on Aug. 10, 2024. (AP)
A man walks past Google's offices in London's Kings Cross area, on Aug. 10, 2024. (AP)

Alphabet's Google illegally dominated two markets for online advertising technology, a judge ruled on Thursday, dealing another blow to the tech giant and paving the way for US antitrust prosecutors to seek a breakup of its advertising products.

US District Judge Leonie Brinkema in Alexandria, Virginia, found Google liable for "willfully acquiring and maintaining monopoly power" in markets for publisher ad servers and the market for ad exchanges which sit between buyers and sellers. Publisher ad servers are platforms used by websites to store and manage their ad inventory.

Antitrust enforcers failed to prove a separate claim that the company had a monopoly in advertiser ad networks, she wrote.

Lee-Anne Mulholland, vice president of Regulatory Affairs, said Google will appeal the ruling.

"We won half of this case and we will appeal the other half," she said, adding that the company disagrees with the decision on its publisher tools. "Publishers have many options and they choose Google because our ad tech tools are simple, affordable and effective."

Google's shares were down around 2.1% at midday.

The decision clears the way for another hearing to determine what Google must do to restore competition in those markets, such as sell off parts of its business at another trial that has yet to be scheduled.

The DOJ has said that Google should have to sell off at least its Google Ad Manager, which includes the company's publisher ad server and ad exchange.

Google now faces the possibility of two US courts ordering it to sell assets or change its business practices. A judge in Washington will hold a trial next week on the DOJ's request to make Google sell its Chrome browser and take other measures to end its dominance in online search.

Google has previously explored selling off its ad exchange to appease European antitrust regulators, Reuters reported in September.

Brinkema oversaw a three-week trial last year on claims brought by the DOJ and a coalition of states.

Google used classic monopoly-building tactics of eliminating competitors through acquisitions, locking customers in to using its products, and controlling how transactions occurred in the online ad market, prosecutors said at trial.

Google argued the case focused on the past, when the company was still working on making its tools able to connect to competitors' products. Prosecutors also ignored competition from technology companies including Amazon.com and Comcast as digital ad spending shifted to apps and streaming video, Google's lawyer said.