Alphabet shares rose 6% in premarket trading on Wednesday as investors viewed the result of Google’s antitrust case as broadly favorable to the tech giant.

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) had proposed a sort of break-up of Google, which included divesting its Chrome browser, in an antitrust case that began in September 2023.

While Google was last year found to hold an illegal monopoly in its core market of internet search, U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta ruled against the most severe consequences that were proposed by the DOJ.

Google will not have to divest Chrome. The company can also still make payments to companies to preload products, but it cannot have exclusive contracts that condition payments or licensing.

That means Google will still be able to pay Apple the billions of dollars it does to be the default search engine on iPhones. 

Apple shares were also higher in premarket trade.

“This is a monster win for Cupertino and for Google its a home run ruling that removes a huge overhang on the stock,” Daniel Ives, global head of technology research at Wedbush Securities, said in a note on Tuesday.

Google has been facing rising competition to its core search business from the likes of Perplexity and OpenAI. But the company has so far fended off challenges with its advertising business still growing.

Google has pinned its hopes of becoming a major artificial intelligence player on Gemini, its suite of AI models and the chatbot that goes by the same name.

“Following today’s announcement, we are increasingly constructive in the longer-term durability of Google’s Search business and are raising our estimates accordingly,” Ives said, adding that he now has a new price target of $245 for Alphabet’s stock.

The ruling also means Google will not have to divest the Android operating system that it develops.

Android is seen as a key tool for Google to increase the number of users for Gemini given that around 70% of smartphones globally run the operating system, giving the U.S. technology giant an existing base of users.

— CNBC’s Jennifer Elias contributed to this report.

Salesforce has cut 4,000 of its customer support roles, CEO Marc Benioff recently said while discussing how artificial intelligence has helped reduce the company headcount.

Benioff revealed the layoffs during an interview published Friday on The Logan Bartlett Show podcast.

“I’ve reduced it from 9,000 heads to about 5,000, because I need less heads,” Benioff said while discussing the impact of AI on Salesforce operations.

Salesforce has been on the front lines of the AI revolution and has built what it calls an “Agentforce” of customer service bots.

“Because of the benefits and efficiencies of Agentforce, we’ve seen the number of support cases we handle decline and we no longer need to actively backfill support engineer roles,” Salesforce said in a statement Tuesday to NBC Bay Area.

The layoffs come after Benioff over the summer announced AI is doing up to 50% of the work at Salesforce, which is based in San Francisco.

Laurie Ruettimann, a human resources consultant, said AI is affecting jobs in several industries.

“There have been layoffs all over America directly attributed to AI,” Ruettimann said, adding anyone who wants to stay employed or looking for work needs to learn new skills.

“If your network could get you a job, it would have done it already. It would have done it yesterday,” Ruettimann said. “It’s on you to expand your vision, to expand your horizons and to meet new people.”

Analyst Ed Zitron said AI is being blamed by tech companies that over hired during the pandemic. The companies are now looking to lure investors by claiming to be more efficient, Zitron said.

“It’s just a growth at all costs mindset,” Zitron said. “The only thing that’s important is growth, even if it ruins people’s lives. Even if it makes the company worse and provides an inferior product.”

Apple shares rose more than 3% in extended trading Tuesday after a federal judge ruled that Alphabet may continue making payments to preload Google Search onto the iPhone.

Although Apple wasn’t a party in the search monopoly trial, the judge was considering remedies that would bar Google from paying billions per year to Apple to be the default search engine on the Safari browser on iPhones, Macs and iPads.

“Google will not be barred from making payments or offering other consideration to distribution partners for preloading or placement of Google Search, Chrome, or its GenAI products,” Judge Amit Mehta wrote in his decision.

“Cutting off payments from Google almost certainly will impose substantial — in some cases, crippling — downstream harms to distribution partners, related markets, and consumers, which counsels against a broad payment ban,” the decision continued.

The landmark case focused on Google’s dominance of the general search market, Google’s violations of the Sherman Act and the barriers to entry that the search engine erected.

However, the judge said that Google will be barred from entering or maintaining “any exclusive contract” related to preloading its search engine or key apps on devices, specifying that Google can’t bundle its Android services with Google search or condition revenue share agreements on the acceptance of other Google apps or services.

The decision said that Apple’s deal with Google to be the default search engine was “exclusive” because it established Google as the default out-of-the-box search engine.

But while Mehta put restrictions on Google making payments to ensure its products receive exclusive distribution, he fell short of banning those payments entirely, leaving open the possibility that the two companies could strike a new deal. The remedies would limit any revenue-sharing agreement to one year, according to the Department of Justice.

Apple did not immediately respond for a request for comment.

“Now the Court has imposed limits on how we distribute Google services, and will require us to share Search data with rivals,” Google said in a blog post. “We have concerns about how these requirements will impact our users and their privacy, and we’re reviewing the decision closely.”

The U.S. Department of Justice filed its suit against Google in 2020, alleging that Google kept its share of the general search market by erecting strong barriers for challengers, such as its default search deals. The U.S. District Court in Washington ruled last August that Google violated Section 2 of the Sherman Act. Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of software and services, testified on Google’s behalf about potential remedies.

Tuesday’s filing was the first time the judge had detailed his proposed remedies.

Analysts previously said that it may take years before Apple is forced to make changes in response to a Google suit ruling. Google has said it will appeal the ruling, and analysts say any remedies trial could last for up to two years. Google can also appeal the outcome of the remedies trial, and the Supreme Court can choose take a look at it once appeals are exhausted.

While Google contracts with companies such as Samsung and browser-maker Mozilla to be the default search engine on their platforms, the most important and biggest such “default agreement” deal is with Apple. Google paid all partners $26 billion in total to be the default search engine in 2021, according to documents discussed in court.

Google paid because it funnels traffic from Apple’s 1 billion iPhone users to its search engine, and the revenue is critical for the growth of Apple’s services business, which investors love because it is so much more profitable than hardware sales.

In addition to the licensing payments, Apple says that it uses Google because it’s the best search engine and that its priority is to offer the best tools to its customers.

Apple also has options if it cannot make Google the default search engine. Earlier this year, for example, Apple’s Cue said in court as a witness for Google that the iPhone maker is also considering adding AI search engines as options to its software.

“Cue’s testimony establishes that Google’s high revenue share payments deterred Apple from trying to capture for itself all the advertising rents that flow through the Safari browser’s default search box,” the judge wrote in Tuesday’s filing.

Apple’s revenue from Google is reported in its financials as advertising revenue, which is reported as part of the company’s Services business, which also includes AppleCare warranties, cloud services like iCloud, and digital content like apps and Apple Music.

WATCH: Federal judge rules Google does not have to divest Chrome