When Innovation Turns Anti-Competitive: A Comparative Legal Analysis of Google’s AI Overviews From a Competition Law Perspective

Abstract The rise of AI is not only an enrichment in many areas but also gives rise to new legal questions – competition law included. Since the introduction of so-called AI Overviews, which appear at the top of Google’s search results page, website operators have voiced concerns rooted in the fear of being entirely pushed out of the market. This has led to formal complaints submitted to competition authorities in both the U.S. and Europe. Whether Google’s use of AI Overviews constitutes a violation of U.S. and/or EU competition law is a complex issue, one that exemplifies how traditional legal reasoning must evolve to adequately assess the competitive impact of AI technologies. The aim of this paper is therefore to analyze the competition law issues arising in connection with the use of AI Overviews, both from the perspective of website operators and from that of operators of AI systems other than Google’s.