The Federal Trade Commission said in a staff report published Friday that there are potential competitive issues in partnerships between large technology companies and generative AI developers – specifically, Microsoft’s support of OpenAI and Amazon and Alphabet / Google’s partnership with Anthropic. “The FTC’s report explains how partnerships with big tech companies can create lock-ins, reduce key AI input startups, and reveal sensitive information that can harm fair competition,” FTC Chairwoman Lina Khan said in a statement. (President-elect Donald Trump plans to replace Khan as chairman.) The report focuses on the role of Microsoft, Amazon, and Google as cloud service providers working with OpenAI and Anthropic; among other things, it shows that such partnerships can affect access to computing resources and engineering talent, increase switching costs for companies working with AI developers, and can give cloud providers unique access to sensitive information. Microsoft’s deputy general counsel Rima Alaily told Bloomberg that the company’s partnership with OpenAI has “enabled one of the world’s most successful AI startups and sparked an unprecedented wave of technology investment and innovation in the industry.”
