20 Organizations Seek FTC, DOJ Probe of Big Tech’s AI Dominance

FTC and DOJ enforcers should investigate Big Tech’s dominance of AI, a group of more than 20 organizations wrote the agencies Wednesday. “We respectfully urge your offices to investigate Big Tech’s concentration in the AI space and to take appropriate action to enforce our antitrust laws,” they said. American Economic Liberties Project, the Center for Digital Democracy, Demand Progress, the Open Markets Institute and Public Citizen signed. They cited the number of AI startup-related purchases Meta, Apple, Google, Microsoft and Amazon have made in recent years. Apple has acquired 32 AI startups since 2010, 21 of those since 2017, the letter said. Since 2010, Google has purchased 21, Meta 18, Microsoft 17 and Amazon 10. These same companies have invested substantially in leading AI companies or shown interest, they added. This includes Microsoft’s $13 billion investment in OpenAI. The letter noted Microsoft is joining OpenAI's board as a nonvoting observer.