AI and competition: Old wine in new bottles?

Big Tech's partnership with GenAI startups echoes a familiar playbook designed to stymie competition and monopolise markets. Regulators must act swiftly

The rise of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) has been impressive. Some numbers that illustrate the speed at which technology has disrupted the status quo are in order: To reach 100 million users, the telephone took 75 years, the mobile phone took 16 years, the web took seven years, Facebook took four years, and Instagram took three years. Meanwhile, ChatGPT took just two months. These estimates underscore the rapid adoption of these technologies and emphasise the importance of getting competition right from the very beginning.

Disruptive technologies always come with the promise of dislodging entrenched incumbents. To facilitate this, competition agencies and