Report | Stopping Big Tech from Becoming Big AI: A Roadmap for Using Competition Policy to Keep Artificial Intelligence Open for All

The Open Markets Institute and Mozilla Corporation published a comprehensive report titled "Stopping Big Tech from Becoming Big AI: A Roadmap for Using Competition Policy to Keep Artificial Intelligence Open for All", urging governments and regulators to take immediate steps to ensure that artificial intelligence (AI) remains a competitive and innovative field, rather than being dominated by a few tech giants. 

With AI rapidly becoming a cornerstone of the global economy, the report warns that society stands at a critical crossroads: One path leads to a future where AI is controlled by a small number of powerful corporations, threatening innovation, consumer privacy, individual liberty and democracy. The other path, the report advocates, leads to a diverse and competitive market where AI is developed by a wide range of participants – public, private, and non-profit – and serves the broader public interest. 

The report highlights several key threats to competition in AI, including exclusive partnerships, self-preferencing, and the control of essential inputs like computing power. These tactics, while often invisible to consumers, concentrate power in the hands of dominant firms and stifle innovation. The report calls on regulators to act quickly, using a range of existing tools from competition policy to block anti-competitive mergers, nullify restrictive partnerships, break up dominant gatekeepers, and impose rules that guarantee fair access to AI technologies. 

Key Recommendations:

• Strengthen Ex-ante Digital Competition Regimes: Ensure new regulatory frameworks can proactively address emerging threats to competition in AI. 

• Block Mergers and Anticompetitive Partnerships: Prevent dominant firms from solidifying control over AI by halting mergers and breaking up existing exclusive agreements that limit market diversity. 

• Break Up Concentrations of Power: Target the concentration of power across the AI technology stack by applying structural separation and vertical integration restrictions. 

• Guarantee Access to Essential Inputs: Impose non-discrimination obligations on dominant firms to ensure fair access to computing power and other critical AI resources. 

• Enable Consumer and Business Switching: Empower consumers and businesses by enforcing data portability and interoperability in cloud and AI services. 

The report also emphasizes the need for a coordinated global approach, calling for governments worldwide to collaborate in regulating AI, given the international nature of the technology and its development.