FTC says partnerships like Microsoft-OpenAI raise antitrust concerns

The Federal Trade Commission said in a staff report published on Friday that there are potential competition issues in partnerships between large technology companies and generative AI developers – in particular, Microsoft’s support for OpenAI and Amazon and Alphabet / Google’s partnership with Anthropic.

“The FTC’s report highlights how partners of big tech companies can create lock-in, deprive start-ups of key AI inputs, and reveal sensitive information that can undermine fair competition,” said the FTC Chairman Lina Khan in a statement. (President-elect Donald Trump plans to replace Khan as president.)

The report focuses on the roles of Microsoft, Amazon and Google as cloud service providers working with OpenAI and Anthropic; among other things, he suggests that these partnerships could affect access to computing resources and engineering talent, increase switching costs for companies working with AI developers, and could give suppliers of cloud unique access to sensitive information.

Rima Alaily, the deputy general counsel of Microsoft he told Bloomberg that the company’s partnership with OpenAI has “enabled one of the world’s most successful AI startups and spurred an unprecedented wave of technology investment and innovation in the industry.”