Google is set to pay $1 billion for a five percent stake in AOL. Google and AOL are also in talks over an advertising partnership, after several recent discussions between AOL and Yahoo over advertising partnerships broke down.
"AOL is the leader in various technologies and services in which Google isn't a significant player," said Guzman financial analyst Philip Remek. "Just by working [more closely] with AOL in this fashion Google will learn and gain capabilities that would have been more difficult to develop on its own."