This move makes sense from the perspective that DeepMind has some street cred in their ability to produce novel models that solve interesting problems. The only issue is that DeepMind has also suffered from the same problems that the mothership has: an inability to execute. Are there any documented success stories of DeepMind making serious money off their models? They've been great at producing interesting and valuable research, but all of their partnerships have failed as far as I know.
Google's screwed because LLMs offer us a fundamentally different business model for search, and I'm not convinced though that you can actually make a company out of LLMs that is as wildly profitable as Google was during its hayday. If that's true, then I just don't see how any CEO could go to the shareholders and say: "in order for us to survive, we have to accept that we're going to be a much smaller company in 5 years, both in terms of head count and profit." Sundar would be overthrown in a matter of days.
Google's screwed because LLMs offer us a fundamentally different business model for search, and I'm not convinced though that you can actually make a company out of LLMs that is as wildly profitable as Google was during its hayday. If that's true, then I just don't see how any CEO could go to the shareholders and say: "in order for us to survive, we have to accept that we're going to be a much smaller company in 5 years, both in terms of head count and profit." Sundar would be overthrown in a matter of days.