The US government wants to prove that Google’s rivals face huge barriers to entry as part of an antitrust case against the tech giant. So, it turned to ChaptGPT’s head of product, Nick Turley, to testify as a witness in hopes that it would help strengthen his case.
In a historic ruling last August, the court decided that Google had a monopoly on search. While Google is appealing that decision, the Justice Department is now asking the court to determine what penalties it should face, such as spinning off Chrome or imposing a 10-year ban on launching any browser product.
To support its case, the Justice Department has enlisted the help of several Google competitors such as OpenAI, Microsoft, and Perplexity. It wants specific executives, such as Perplexity’s chief business officer, Dmitry Shevelenko, to testify. (It is not yet clear whether Shevlenko will do so. Perplexity did not immediately respond to a request for comment.)
Recent legal filings confirm that one of OpenAI’s top executives, Nick Turley, head of the ChatGPT product, will testify as a witness in the US government’s case.
“Mr. Turley is a witness selected by prosecutors [the DOJ] “To testify on behalf of OpenAI,” Google’s lawyers wrote on January 16. Legal deposit.
“Mr. Turley is an OpenAI witness who will testify on behalf of the government at the evidentiary hearing. Another deposit From January 16 reads.
None of the filings specify exactly when Turley will testify. The US is expected to ask Turley about “generative AI’s relationship to access points for research, distribution, barriers to entry and expansion, and data sharing.” For every deposit. The Justice Department did not provide details about what it wants to ask Turley. (These are the exact same topics you’ll want to bring up on CBO at Perplexity.)
The Department of Justice uses the term “search access points” to refer to products like Google Chrome that people use to search the web. Notably, in October 2024, ChatGPT launched its own AI-powered search browser.
To prepare itself for Turley’s testimony, Google asked OpenAI to provide documents related to the case. But the two companies are now in a heated dispute over how much evidence OpenAI should provide.
In a legal file On January 16, Google criticized OpenAI for producing “too few documents.” OpenAI’s lawyers responded by noting that Google’s demands for documents from senior executives such as CEO Sam Altman appeared to be a “Trojan horse intended to harass OpenAI executives.”
OpenAI has agreed to share some documents from Turley’s work files about OpenAI’s strategy on AI products, integrating AI into research-related products, and its partnership with Microsoft. message From OpenAI Lawyer Offers.
Google says it needs more documents from more executives, because relying mostly on Turley “would hurt Google” given that Turley was a witness who was “hand-picked” by the US government, according to Deposit.
Google also wants documents from OpenAI leading up to the November 2022 launch of ChatGPT. claim These “may undermine Mr. Turley’s testimony regarding barriers to entry in a way that post-launch documents cannot do.” But OpenAI says older documents “cannot meaningfully represent” the current AI landscape.
Both sides deadlocked and OpenAI asked the court to reject the full scope of evidence requested by Google.
OpenAI and Google did not respond to requests for comment. The Ministry of Justice declined to comment.
TechCrunch has an AI-focused newsletter! Sign up here to get it in your inbox every Wednesday.