"We are more comfortable now than we were a few years ago to buy real businesses," Schmidt said in response to a reporter's question ahead of the company's annual shareholder meeting. "But we are not doing it for competitive reasons. We are doing it because it is part of building out a portfolio."

"So I think the pace will accelerate, but it is not a fundamental shift and we are not going to do it every day," he said of the company's willingness to entertain larger deals.

"In the past, we would buy businesses in lieu of (hiring) engineers," Schmidt said. These days, Google buys a start-up once every few days, or around one a week, he estimated.