Google to pay $50 million to resolve racial bias among black employees
Google has agreed to pay $50 million to resolve a lawsuit a search engine company denies systemic racial bias against black employees.
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Alphabet’s Google.o Google One subscription service has recently exceeded 150 million subscribers, claiming consumers for cloud storage and artificial intelligence capabilities, the company told Reuters.
This represents a 50% increase since February 2024, when Google surpassed 100 million subscriptions almost six years after its service was launched.
In the same month, Google introduced a $19.99 monthly plan that allowed access to AI features that are not available to free users. The company continues to offer one Google subscription tier for file storage, but it does not have most AI features.
According to Shimrit Ben-Yair, vice president of Google, responsible for subscription services, the new AI tier accounts for “millions” of subscriptions.
Google One is part of Alphabet’s efforts to diversify beyond advertising, accounting for more than three-quarters of $350 billion in 2024 revenue.
Alphabet’s success with subscriptions could play a key role in the long-term financial outlook as it threatens AI chatbot threats like Openai’s ChatGpt and Google’s own Gemini to search engine hubs.
The AI offering was the first time that searches for Apple’s AAPL.O Safari browsers fell, an Apple executive said in court testimony last week. iPhone manufacturers are considering introducing AI-powered search options. This is the blow of the alphabet, which lost its market value of $150 billion that day.
Unlike search engines, AI interfaces have yet to find a seamless way to incorporate ads. Instead, many companies charge users through subscriptions or based on their use of the product.
Investors are questioning how Google will adapt.
“As we saw on YouTube, it gives people options over time,” CEO Sundar Pichai said in February when he was asked to make an effort to monetize Gemini during the revenue call. “You think this year we’re focused on the direction of subscriptions.”
Reported by Kenrick Kai of San Francisco. Edited by Stephen Coates
