OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, approached the European Commission at the end of September in the hope of voicing its concerns about current competition in the artificial intelligence sector.
According to Competition Commissioner Teresa Ribera’s schedule of meetings, several representatives of the company met with members of her cabinet on 24 September, with a view to influencing European competition policy and putting forward their views on the current state of the artificial intelligence (AI) sector.
These discussions come at a time when the EU will be reviewing the Digital Markets Act (DMA) (see EUROPE 13696/10), in particular to adapt it to the rise of AI and to incorporate the already significant weight of the digital giants in emerging technologies.
The DMA could therefore be reviewed to regulate the way in which these platforms take advantage of their current market positions to develop on the AI market.
According to a very brief report of the meeting, published by the Commission, OpenAI says it is in “difficulty” in the face of competition from well-entrenched companies “in a complex network of digital markets”, ranging “from cloud computing to application development”.
In other words, the almost monopolistic weight of certain large companies, starting with Google, whose Gemini generative AI is in open competition with ChatGPT, could, according to OpenAI’s recriminations, pose a problem in terms of fair competition in the AI world.
OpenAI hopes that the Commission can take action to “prevent the large platforms from locking in customers”, thereby facilitating competition by ensuring that large, established companies do not enjoy significant advantages through a pre-existing user base.
At this stage, the Commission has not provided any further details on the future revision of the DMA. (Original version in French by Isalia Stieffatre)