Google Gemini on Samsung phones isn’t the simple quid pro quo I imagined

Google pays Samsung an ‘enormous sum’ of money to pre-install Gemini AI tools on its Galaxy smartphones, an antitrust court in the United States has heard.

As part of an antitrust case that could see Google as we know it forced to break up, Google revealed the payments to Samsung had begun in January this year – around the time of the Galaxy S25 phones (via Bloomberg).

The best Samsung phones have Gemini AI as a built-in app and even a dedicated hardware button that launches Gemini directly. That effectively gives Google’s app top AI billing on Samsung’s phones over its own tools.

A US Department of Justice (DoJ) lawyer said the payments Google are making for that privilege represent an “enormous sum” although the full figures weren’t disclosed.

Part of the case against Google is other deals the search and mobile giant has made with companies like Apple to be the default search provider on the company’s Safari browser. That agreement reportedly equates to billions of dollars per year.

The US DoJ have already determined that Google violated antitrust laws for monopolistic business practices and there will be punishments meted out.

“After having carefully considered and weighed the witness testimony and evidence, the court reaches the following conclusion: Google is a monopolist, and it has acted as one to maintain its monopoly,” federal judge Amit Mehta ruled last year.

Google’s punishment might compel it to halt all of those default provider deals in future, even if they’re mutually beneficial for all agreeing parties.

Opinion

I had figured Gemini and Samsung phones was a mutually be beneficial arrangement and, perhaps naively, it hadn’t occurred to me that Google would be paying loads for the privilege.

In the past Samsung and Google have been natural bedfellows, with the emergence of Android and the re-emergence of Wear OS being two prime examples.

I had assumed this was a similar quid pro quo with both companies benefitting. Samsung has received Gemini features before other manufacturers to help boost its own Galaxy AI tools, and Google has Gemini promoted on millions of devices as it seeks to offset other rivals in the space like Open AI’s Chat GPT.

To learn there are “enormous sums” being exchanged here surprises me.

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