For Gemini as a standard app: Google pays "huge sums of money" to Samsung

Google is investing “huge sums of money” every month to ensure that Samsung pre-installs the Gemini AI app in Galaxy smartphones and other devices. This is according to court testimony from Peter Fitzgerald, Google's vice president of platforms and device partnerships, as reported by Bloomberg.

According to Fitzgerald, who testified in federal court in Washington on Monday and Tuesday as part of the Department of Justice's antitrust case against Google, the company began paying Samsung for Gemini in January. The Galaxy S25 series is the first device series from the manufacturer to have Gemini on board as a standard assistant.

According to the Google manager, the contract with Samsung, which runs for at least two years, provides for fixed monthly payments for each device on which Gemini is pre-installed. The company will also pay Samsung a percentage of the revenue that Google generates from advertising in the app.

Samsung may also install alternative AI apps alongside Gemini

Samsung has also received “competing offers” from other AI companies, such as Microsoft, Meta and OpenAI, to pre-install their AI apps, according to Fitzgerald. Another report suggests that Perplexity is also in negotiations with Samsung to install the AI assistant on Galaxy devices.

Under the agreement, Samsung could integrate alternative generative AI services alongside Gemini, but according to a report by The Information (paywall), Google only communicated this opening to Samsung and other smartphone manufacturers a few days before the negotiation. Internal slides shown during the trial indicate that Google originally considered “more restrictive distribution agreements that would have required partners to install Gemini alongside Search and Chrome,” writes The Information.

No details on the amount

The amount Google paid Samsung to integrate Gemini as the default assistant instead of its Bixby solution has not been disclosed. However, Google paid eight billion US dollars between 2020 and 2023 to make Google Search, the Play Store and Google Assistant the standard on Samsung's Galaxy devices. This is according to a statement in the proceedings on the monopoly position of Google's Android ecosystem.

If the Ministry of Justice has its way, the results of these hearings could mean that Google will no longer be allowed to make agreements on standard apps on mobile devices in the future. In addition, the company would have to sell the Chrome browser and license the majority of Google search data. OpenAI has already expressed interest in Chrome.

Google had previously violated US antitrust law twice due to similar agreements for search, including with Samsung and Apple.

(afl)