The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has just launched a review of the AI investments of several American giants. Alphabet, Amazon and Microsoft are thus singled out.
Generative AI has become a sector in which each of the American tech giants wants to establish itself. And for this, the preferred means seems to be partnership with start-ups working on the subject for several years, like the link between Microsoft and OpenAI. Fruitful links, but which are increasingly questioned by public authorities, whether at home in Europe, or on the other side of the Atlantic.
Relations with Anthropic and OpenAI questioned
The link between Microsoft and OpenAI is well known. But the firm founded by Bill Gates is not the only one to have forged this type of connection. Its competitor Alphabet (Google) also looked for an outside company to work with, despite Bard’s development. The Californian group has thus invested 2 billion dollars in Anthropic, at the origin of the Claude AI. The latter is so successful that it also received 4 billion dollars from Amazon.
Relations which could lead to distortions of competition, which is why the American competition regulator has just launched an examination. “ As companies race to develop and monetize AI, we must guard against tactics that foreclose this opportunity » said Lina Khan, the boss of the FTC.
Companies have 45 days to respond.
“ Our study will determine whether investments and partnerships pursued by dominant companies risk distorting innovation and harming fair competition » was also added.
The companies contacted have 45 days to respond to the FTC’s questions, which wants to obtain details on numerous subjects such as investments, new products developed or market analyzes developed by the different companies.
As a reminder, Federal Trade Commission Commissioner Lina Khan became known before her appointment for her criticism of the dominant position in the GAFAM markets, and in particular that of Google in the search engine market.
Source : Engadget
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