Google

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? 1 for the road: Google's life lessons

Common, practical life skills are among Google's most-searched how-to topics. Image: Google Trends More than ever before, adults are looking online for help with the day-to-day life skills that once might have been taught in home economics classes or handed down from elders, Axios' Chelsea Brasted writes. Why it matters: When we need help, we're not asking mom or dad. We're increasingly asking Google. ?️ The latest: Searches for things like "how to clean bathroom vent," "how to use a mop" or "how to do oil change" have reached an all-time high on Google this year, according to the search engine's data. Zoom out: It's not just Google teaching us how to care for our cars and homes. By 2018, more than half of U.S. YouTube users were already saying they used the platform for "figuring out how to do things they haven't done before," according to Pew Research data. Cleaning trends remain one of the most popular content categories on TikTok.

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Google’s unleashes ‘AI Mode’ in the next phase of its journey to change search

Google on Tuesday unleashed another wave of artificial intelligence technology to accelerate a year-long makeover of its search engine that is changing the way people get information and curtailing the flow of internet traffic to websites.

https://apnews.com/article/google-search-artificial-intelligence-upheaval-5b0cdc59870508dab856227185cb8e23?

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Google

In a landmark antitrust ruling, a federal judge has decided that Google will not be forced to sell off its Android operating system or Chrome browser. US District Court Judge Amit Mehta also said he had accepted some of Google’s proposed remedies. For example, the tech company will need to make certain search data available to qualified competitors to promote competition. And, Google will be barred from entering into or maintaining exclusive contracts related to the distribution of services like Chrome, Search, the Google Assistant and its Gemini app. In a statement, the Justice Department said the ruling “recognizes the need for remedies that will pry open the market for general search services.”   Judge orders search shakeup in Google monopoly case U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta on Tuesday ordered a shakeup of Google’s search engine in an attempt to curb the corrosive power of an illegal monopoly, while rebuffing the U.S. government’s attempt to break up the company and impose other restraints. Read more. Why this matters: The judge is trying to rein in Google by prohibiting some of the tactics the company deployed to drive traffic to its search engine and other services, such as preventing contracts that give its search engine, Gemini AI app, Play Store for Android, and virtual assistant an exclusive position on smartphone, personal computers, and other devices.   But Mehta rejected the U.S. Justice Department’s effort to force Google to sell its popular Chrome browser and stopped short of banning the multibillion-dollar deals that Google has been making for years to lock in its search engine as the default on many devices. RELATED COVERAGE ➤ Disney to pay $10 million fine after FTC says it allowed data collection on kids   OpenAI and Meta say they’re fixing AI chatbots to better respond to teens in distress   Amazon ends a program that lets Prime members share free shipping perk with users outside household

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Google hit with $3.5 billion fine from European Union in ad-tech antitrust case

European Union regulators on Friday hit Google with a 2.95 billion euro ($3.5 billion) fine for breaching the bloc’s competition rules by favoring its own digital advertising services, but the bloc’s latest move to crack down on Big Tech companies drew outrage from President Donald Trump.

https://apnews.com/article/google-european-union-antitrust-digital-ca4a31c3f7cf7d33ea9c4748bc3ac459?

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? Google's AI comeback

Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios

We've asked the top AI executives for their private take on the American rival they fear most. Without pause, they all cough up the same name: Google. Why it matters: After a sleepy start in the AI race, the search giant's combination of scientific brain power, deep access to data, and lucrative income streams has competitors worried. ? The big picture: Google and its closest rival, OpenAI, are increasingly in direct competition to conquer the next generation of search — one where AI curates smarter, faster, better answers without the hassle of digging and clicking, Axios' Ina Fried and Dan Primack write. The prize: The generational business of being America's — and much of the world's — front door to just about everything. ? Google has been pursuing all the buzzy AI trends, including promising AI agents, enterprise subscriptions and putting chatbots everywhere. Perhaps as important as recent gains, Google has a large and profitable business to support its aggressive training and development pace, while cash-burning rivals like OpenAI must constantly find fresh sources of capital. Google also has a leg up on OpenAI when it comes to distribution, thanks to its ubiquitous search engine, Chrome browser and Android operating system. Go deeper ...

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? 1 for the road: 2025's top trending searches

Illustration: Eniola Odetunde/Axios

Google is out this morning with its annual "Year in Search" lists — revealing the top trending news, culture and tech moments that captured our attention in 2025. The top 10 trending U.S. searches: Charlie Kirk KPop Demon Hunters Labubu iPhone 17 One Big Beautiful Bill Act Zohran Mamdani DeepSeek Government shutdown FIFA Club World Cup Tariffs More Google Trends data.

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? 1 fun thing: Our top cookies

Map: Google Google search data shows America is craving peanut butter this Christmas, with recipes for Peanut Butter Blossoms and Peanut Butter Balls topping the holiday charts for fastest-rising cookies, Axios' Kelly Tyko writes. Spritz cookies — buttery, shortbread-like cookies pressed into festive shapes — also surged. Searches for gingerbread houses more than quadrupled, while "yule log," "yule cookies" and "hot cocoa cookie recipe" are also trending, Google told Axios. The poinsettia cocktail — cranberry juice, orange liqueur and champagne — is the top-trending Christmas drink. Go deeper: Top trending recipes for each state.

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• 💰 Google is investing $10 billion in Anthropic with $30 billion more on the table, Bloomberg reports. The move strengthens "the relationship between two companies that are at once partners and rivals" in the AI world. More from Axios' Madison Mills.

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💻 Google unveils AI-powered laptops

Image: Google Google today unveiled the Googlebook, a Chromebook successor with deeper Gemini AI integration, Axios' Ina Fried reports. The Googlebook's most visible change is the Magic Pointer, which summons Gemini at the wiggle of a cursor. 👨🏽‍💻 The laptops will come in a variety of sizes and from a number of companies, including Acer, Asus, Dell, HP and Lenovo. The first models are due out this fall. Go deeper.

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🔎 Google's new plan: AI everywhere

Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis speaks during a keynote address at Google I/O yesterday in Mountain View, Calif. Photo: Benjamin Fanjoy/Getty Images Axios tech expert Ina Fried writes from Google's annual I/O conference, which draws 5,000 professional developers to Mountain View, Calif.: Google is reinventing the product that made it one of the richest companies in history: search. Google DeepMind co-founder and CEO Demis Hassabis tells Ina in an interview that "agents in search is the next step. One of the cool things we get to do here at Google is build technologies that get immediately deployed into multibillion-dollar products." Why it matters: Search is the cash cow that funds Google's sprawling empire. But it faces an existential threat from AI chatbots, so the company is moving proactively to upend its own core business before someone else does. 🔬 Zoom in: In what it billed as the biggest change to the search box since its debut, Google announced yesterday that it's allowing the box to expand for longer queries and chat-style exchanges. Google has been headed in this direction for a while. It already puts AI-generated summaries at the top of search results and has a more chat-like experience, AI Mode. But the company's announcement pushes that strategy much further, signaling Google's determination to keep users from drifting to standalone chatbots. As part of that effort, Google is bringing the hottest trend in AI — agents — into search. Instead of just finding out when your favorite band is coming to town, users can create a standing query that alerts them if any of the acts announce shows nearby. Similar "information agents" can help with recurring questions about shopping and news. Shahram Izadi, Google's general manager and vice president of XR (extended reality), speaks yesterday at the Google I/O developer conference in Mountain View, Calif. Photo: Manuel Orbegozo/Reuters 🕶️ On the hardware front, Google is finally moving forward with AI glasses, more than a decade after the flop of Google Glass. Meta has had success here with its Ray-Ban smart glasses, and Google sees its AI and search prowess as a way to stand out from its rival. Google said the audio-only version of the smart glasses, being co-developed with Samsung and eyewear makers Warby Parker and Gentle Monster (pictured above), will be available this fall. 🔮 What's next: Hassabis says his timeline on when to expect AGI is roughly the same as he's been estimating for the past few years. Expect it in 2030, "maybe plus or minus one year," he tells Axios.

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🦾 Google's plan to win the AI war

Illustration: Brendan Lynch/Axios

Axios' Ina Fried writes from Google's I/O developer conference in Mountain View: Google is trying to pull off one of the trickiest balancing acts in tech: aggressively disrupting its own products with AI while protecting the businesses generating tens of billions in profit. Why it matters: Unlike OpenAI and Anthropic, Google enters the AI race with enormous scale, distribution and cash flow — but also a vast empire to defend. "One of the cool things we get to do here at Google is build technologies that get immediately deployed into multibillion-dollar products," Google DeepMind co-founder and CEO Demis Hassabis told Ina in an interview. "It's pretty, pretty exciting, and I would say pretty unique." 🖼️ The big picture: Public perception of the AI race swings wildly based on whichever company most recently released a flashy model. For a while, OpenAI was seen as unbeatable. Then late last year, Google was seen as pulling ahead. And now many point to Anthropic as having surged thanks to Mythos. But executives at Google, OpenAI and Anthropic increasingly describe the frontier race as neck-and-neck, with companies making different tradeoffs on cost, speed and computing resources. This was highlighted by Google's choice to debut the latest Gemini not with a behemoth version to compete with Anthropic's Mythos but with the faster, cheaper Gemini 3.5 Flash. Keep reading.

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🔎 End of internet's golden era

Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios. Stock: Getty Images Google's overhaul of the search bar this week washes away one of the last vestiges of the internet's halcyon era — when search tools felt empowering, social media and swiping were novel, and popular disillusionment had yet to set in, Axios' Neal Rothschild writes. Why it matters: The AI era and the TikTok-ification of social media have produced a digital world that's responsive to today's market demands, and unrecognizable from a decade ago. 🖼️ The big picture: Americans' trust in Big Tech has plunged over the past 15 years, forcing drastic shifts from the status quo alongside technological advancements. The share of Americans with a "great deal" or "quite a lot" of confidence in tech companies was only 24% in 2025, down from 32% in 2020, according to Gallup polling. Between 2015 and 2019, the share of Americans who said tech companies have a positive effect on the country plunged from 71% to 50%, according to Pew polling. Go back even further, and tech companies topped a 2010 Pew poll of the most favorable institutions, on par with small business.