Volume, a leading magazine on architecture and design, published an article on the GoogleUrbanism project. Conceived at a renowned design institute in Moscow, the project charts a plausible urban future based on cities acting as important sites for "data extractivism" – the conversion of data harvested from individuals into artificial intelligence technologies, allowing companies such as Alphabet, Google's parent company, to act as providers of sophisticated and comprehensive services. The cities themselves, the project insisted, would get a share of revenue from the data.

A three-stage Speculative Expansion Strategy for Google in physical space, starting with the co-creation of a new type of "public license" within its existing digital infrastructure, and through which the "access to users' presence" in public spaces could be generating financial returns for the city..