FTC dives into tech giants’ AI pool party
The United States Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has said it will investigate significant artificial intelligence (AI) players such as Amazon, Alphabet, Microsoft, Anthropic and OpenAI about their investments and partnerships.
In a Jan. 25 announcement, the FTC said it issued orders to the five companies asking them to provide information about their deals with generative AI companies and major cloud service providers and the strategic reasoning behind them.
The FTC has sent the order to companies involved in multi-billion dollar investments such as Microsoft, OpenAI, Amazon, Anthropic and Google.
FTC issues 6(b) orders regarding recent investments and partnerships with leading #AI and cloud service providers: #GenAI /1
— FTC (@FTC) January 25, 2024
Speaking at a tech summit organized by the agency, FTC Chairwoman Lina Khan said the orders were “a market question about investments and partnerships between AI developers and major cloud service providers.”
Businesses are using a variety of approaches to develop and use AI, including partnering and investing directly in AI developers to acquire the technologies and resources necessary for AI development.
The regulator uses its authority to conduct 6(b) investigations, allowing it to investigate AI companies independently of law enforcement and to file civil investigative demands. This means the agency will force companies to submit certain reports and respond to questions about their operations.
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The FTC seeks details related to the impact of such partnerships on competition for AI resources and inputs, including competitive dynamics related to essential products and services required for generative AI.
In addition, the Commission is interested in information shared with any other government entity, including foreign government entities, for investigations, information requests or other inquiries related to these topics.
The UK antitrust authority is considering launching an inquiry into Microsoft's significant collaboration with OpenAI. Microsoft responded by saying it has a non-voting observer role on the ChatGPT maker's board.
The European Commission has signaled its intention to investigate whether Microsoft's investment in OpenAI can be assessed under EU integration rules.
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