The curtain is about to fall on a long-running antitrust battle over Google’s advertising technology—but the settlement shaping up is not the breakup many competitors wanted. Instead, behavioral remedies expected in the coming days will set the rules for how Google can operate its ad exchange, ad server and related tools while regulators, marketers and publishers start asking harder questions about AI-driven ad products.
Where the case landed
Google was ruled a monopolist twice in the past 12 months: first in search, then in ad tech. Yet in both matters, judges stopped short of forcing divestiture of Chrome or Google’s ad exchange and ad server. That outcome has left industry observers disappointed, even as final behavioral remedies in the ad tech case are being negotiated.
The unresolved details matter. Alan Chapell, a privacy attorney and regulatory analyst, said some parties believed the Department of Justice proposed a structural remedy that was too complex in an effort to appear more business-friendly. Issues from the trial—including “Red State,” an initiative to lower rival exchange bid prices, and “Jedi Blue,” an alleged preferential arrangement with Meta—still need resolution.
The spotlight shifts to AI
Rather than celebrating a clean win, Google’s critics are now pointing to the next consolidation risk: AI-led advertising. Google is expanding AI Max beyond search into shopping and travel, while automated controls move advertisers from manual keyword management toward intent-based, prompt-driven campaign optimization.
James Rosewell, co-founder of Movement for an Open Web, argued that Google can leverage its assets across payments, email, search and browsers to build dominance in agentic commerce. He pointed to initiatives like Universal Commerce Protocol and Universal Cart as an “infrastructure of dominance” across the AI commerce value chain, and called for European regulators to use the Digital Markets Act to preserve competition.
Why advertisers should care
For marketers, the shift from transparent, channel-specific buying to blended, AI-managed campaigns is the practical core of the story. Robert Webster of TAU Marketing Solutions said Google has started automatically upgrading Search campaigns to AI Max, a system that prioritizes broad reach and automated query expansion over precision and visibility. A single Performance Max campaign can now straddle search, YouTube, display and Shopping, while Google’s measurement system can “prove it works better” than alternatives—potentially drawing budget away from independent demand-side platforms and publisher-direct deals.
That does not automatically violate antitrust law. But it changes how much control advertisers actually have. As Webster put it, the controls are still there—they are just becoming less visible and harder to use.
Three areas to watch
- Remedy scope: Will behavioral remedies apply only to display, or also to connected TV and newer AI surfaces?
- Interoperability: Watch whether Google makes mandated data sharing genuinely useful or merely technically compliant.
- Campaign defaults: Track how often Google pushes AI Max and Performance Max upgrades, and whether you can opt out without losing performance or data access.
CTV could be the sleeper issue
Webster also warned that connected TV deserves more regulatory attention. He argued it will be very hard for broadcast TV to survive against YouTube over a prolonged period because YouTube can offer advertisers both identity and measurement capabilities that unlock significant spend. If the remedies are interpreted narrowly, CTV could escape oversight despite its growing importance.
Chapell noted a familiar risk: Google could comply with the letter of a remedy while frustrating its intent—making integrations difficult or expensive, degrading interoperability data, or setting standards that rivals struggle to meet. “They sort of make it much harder for anybody outside of Google… to actually know what’s going on under the hood,” he said.
What marketers should do now
The end of this case is unlikely to be the end of Google oversight. Advertisers can protect themselves by maintaining independent measurement, auditing AI-driven campaign performance by channel where possible, testing non-Google demand paths and documenting any changes to data access or auction controls. Publishers should track how GAM and AdX behave in day-to-day monetization, especially beyond traditional display.
For the industry, the legacy desktop-and-mobile fight may be winding down. The AI-era fight is only beginning.
Source: Digiday
