What Google’s Antitrust Defeat Means for AI

Google has officially been named a monopoly. On Aug. 5, a federal judge charged the tech giant with illegally using its market power to harm rival search engines, marking the first antitrust defeat for a major internet platform in more than 20 years—and thereby calling into question the business practices of Silicon Valley’s most powerful companies.

Many experts have speculated the landmark decision will make judges more receptive to antitrust action in other ongoing cases against the Big Tech platforms, especially with regards to the burgeoning AI industry. Today, the AI ecosystem is dominated by many of the same companies that the government is challenging in court, and those companies are using the same tactics to entrench their power in AI markets.

Judge Amit Mehta’s ruling in the Google case centered on the massive sums of money the company paid firms like Apple and Samsung to make its search engine the default on their smartphones and browsers. These “exclusive agreements” offered Google “access to scale that its rivals cannot match” and left other search engines “at a persistent competitive disadvantage,”  Judge Mehta wrote. By effectively “freezing” the existing search ecosystem in place, the payments “reduced the incentive to invest and innovate in search.” 

Today, a similar type of arrangement is cropping up in the AI sector. Companies like Google, Amazon, and Microsoft have cemented numerous partnerships in which developers agree to use—sometimes exclusively—the company’s cloud services in exchange for resources like cash and cloud credits. Given the high cost of computing hardware and developers’ incessant demand for this infrastructure, the tech giants can often negotiate additional concessions like equity, technology licenses, or profit sharing arrangements. Though these cloud partnerships are structured differently than the deals at issue in the Google case, they similarly serve to lock up revenue streams and possibly exclude disruptive rivals from lucrative distribution channels.

Big Tech companies are also using more traditional tactics to entrench their power in the AI market. In a forthcoming report, my colleagues at Georgetown University’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology and I found Apple, Microsoft, Google, Meta, and Amazon have collectively acquired at least 89 AI companies over the last decade, and those acquisitions tended to target younger startups, a signal that the tech giants may be targeting innovative AI firms before they pose a competitive threat. The companies’ integration across the AI supply chain also offers opportunities for self-preferencing and other problematic behaviors that they have allegedly used in other digital marketplaces.

Should the courts continue to rule against tech giants in ongoing antitrust cases, they would equip U.S. authorities with powerful ammunition to challenge the companies in the AI industry. Effective enforcement could help foster a new generation of startups looking to build types of responsible, socially beneficial AI tools that may not otherwise reach the market.

But while the Google decision opens the door for much-needed antitrust scrutiny in the AI industry, even the most effective enforcement regime cannot single-handedly foster a competitive AI sector. Antitrust suits take years to work through the courts, and even if judges find a company behaved illegally, it may be impossible to reverse its damage to competition and innovation. 

Consider the timeline of the Google case. Google made its first agreement with Apple in 2005, and the Justice Department did not bring its antitrust suit until 2020. Judge Mehta’s ruling earlier this summer did not the end of the matter either; it could take years to decide on remedies and complete the appeals process. And it is unclear whether any remedy will change internet search all that much.

Policymakers cannot wait so long when it comes to the AI market. Companies and governments are eager to adopt AI systems, and today it is virtually impossible to build and scale one of those tools without using infrastructure controlled by Big Tech companies. Giving the tech giants years to tighten their grip on the industry could permanently hamper AI startups’ ability to succeed and irrevocably undermine innovation.

If policymakers hope to keep the market for AI systems from becoming as stagnant and uncompetitive as that for search engines, they will need to use other tools. These may include regulating cloud platforms like utility companies and creating public infrastructure to offset developers’ reliance on private firms. Creative interventions like these, in addition to effective antitrust enforcement, will help maintain an open AI ecosystem that benefits us all rather than just Big Tech’s business models.

We will never know how many technological breakthroughs died on the vine thanks to Google’s monopoly over internet search. But with the right approach to competition policy, we can promote a healthier, more dynamic ecosystem for AI.