- Google has reportedly asked the FTC to investigate the partnership between Microsoft and OpenAI
- Microsoft is currently the only cloud provider for OpenAI – Google says this is damaging
- Google is currently facing its own FTC investigations
Google has reportedly asked the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to investigate Microsoft's current partnership with OpenAI, which allows it to be the AI giant's exclusive cloud provider.
The accusation (via The Information), comes after months of deals between the two companies, starting with Microsoft's multi-billion dollar investment into OpenAI, and the subsequent rollout of GPT-powered AI tools across its office software.
The problem, says Google, is that Microsoft’s position as the sole cloud provider for OpenAI’s models, including the widely used ChatGPT chatbot, would limit market competition and impose higher costs on certain customers seeking to access OpenAI’s technology.
Google tackles Microsoft’s partnership with OpenAI
Under Microsoft’s current agreement, companies using OpenAI’s services may incur additional charges if they do not use Microsoft’s Azure cloud servers themselves, which has been branded as an anticompetitive practice. And Microsoft’s oh-so familiar with allegations of anticompetitive business practices – this year alone it has faced numerous threats to investigate its cloud business, but this AI-related concern marks a slightly different angle of attack.
Microsoft has been accused of creating itself an unfair advantage by discouraging businesses from using alternative cloud providers. Furthermore, increased costs could harm customers and reduce their access to AI tools.
Microsoft isn’t oblivious to these types of accusations, though. Earlier in 2024, it gave up an observer seat on OpenAI’s board in order to address regulatory scrutiny.
Although Google is pointing the finger at Microsoft, it, too, has faced antitrust investigations recently. In early 2024, a US judge stated Google has an illegal monopoly over the internet search market, and would be facing a probe
Cloudflare’s recent 2024 Year in Review figures confirmed that Google holds 88.5% of the search market, far ahead of Yandex (3.1%), Baidu (2.7%), Bing (2.6%) and DuckDuckGo (0.9%) in second to fifth places.
OpenAI and the FTC have already declined to respond to media enquiries. Google and Microsoft have not yet responded.
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