A big part of this will be Google's focus on artificial intelligence (AI) in understanding user behavior as well as preferences.
The U.S. technology giant recently released a toolkit for developers to integrate AI into their software that understands written English. AI is difficult to develop but Google's aim with releasing the tools will help it stoke the ecosystem.
"Part of our job is to seed markets with new ideas and the quickest way to do that is to build software ... where you literally freely license it," Schmidt said.
"We believe that not only will we be using (the AI toolkit), but all our competitors will and all the start-ups, and on balance that's a win because we win when the whole ecosystem gets larger."
Technology companies are having to re-evaluate business models in the face of a changing environment. Amazon has constantly said that its cloud business will overtake retail, while Apple is looking at ways to get further revenues from its software and services.
