Microsoft, Google, and Amazon have made significant investments in OpenAI and Anthropic. Microsoft, the largest investor in OpenAI, was rumored to have invested $10 billion in the company, while Amazon invested $4 billion in Anthropic in September. Google owns a 10% stake in Anthropic following a $300 million investment in February. The FTC's investigation aims to determine whether these investments and partnerships pursued by dominant companies risk distorting innovation and undermining fair competition.
Key takeaways:
- The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has opened an inquiry into the investments of Big Tech companies in smaller AI companies, such as OpenAI and Anthropic, to understand their impact on the competitive landscape of generative AI.
- The FTC has requested Alphabet, Amazon, Anthropic, Microsoft, and OpenAI to provide information on their specific investment agreements, how these partnerships influence product releases and oversight rights, and how these investments impact the market share, competition, and potential for sales growth in the sector.
- Microsoft is the biggest investor in OpenAI, and Amazon and Google have significant investments in Anthropic. These partnerships often provide AI developers with cheaper access to the expensive resources needed to train and fine-tune large language models.
- The FTC is particularly interested in the relationship between OpenAI and Microsoft and has previously requested documents from OpenAI seeking information on possible consumer harm from publishing false information.