AI Antitrust Probes Are Underway, DOJ Says Without Specifying

The US Justice Department has opened a number of probes into competition in artificial intelligence, Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust Jonathan Kanter said.

“We have a lot of work underway at the Department of Justice Antitrust Division with respect to AI and competition, including numerous active investigations,” Kanter said Wednesday at a conference in Brussels. He didn’t name any companies.

Jonathan Kanter

Photographer: Al Drago/Bloomberg

The Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission have been wrangling over which one will take the lead in a potential antitrust probe of Microsoft Corp.’s investment in OpenAI. Microsoft has invested more than $13 billion in the ChatGPT maker, and antitrust reviews are already underway in both the UK and the European Union.

Last week, the FTC said it was opening an inquiry into Microsoft’s OpenAI partnership, as well as Alphabet Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. investments in Anthropic. The inquiry, known as a 6(b) study, allows the agency to issue subpoenas to conduct market studies. The FTC generally issues a report on its findings after analyzing the information from companies, though that process can take years to complete.

An FTC study wouldn’t prevent a separate Justice Department inquiry into Microsoft’s investment. The Justice Department has generally taken responsibility for antitrust issues related to Microsoft since its landmark antitrust case in the late 1990s, though the FTC recently reviewed the Xbox maker’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard Inc. The FTC unsuccessfully sued to block the deal and is currently appealing the loss.

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Leah Nylen in Washington at lnylen2@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story:
Sara Forden at sforden@bloomberg.net

Peter Jeffrey, Peter Chapman

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