Groundhog Day for Publishers: AI Overviews, Copyright, and Competition
Executive Summary
Google’s AI Overviews has revived a familiar conflict between publishers and digital platforms. As in earlier disputes over news aggregation, publishers argue that Google uses their content while weakening the traffic and revenue on which their business models depend. Early evidence gives this claim more support than prior complaints about snippets and links, because AI-generated summaries appear to reduce click-through rates and keep more users within Google Search.
The legal setting has also changed. Courts and policymakers have yet to determine whether the training, fine-tuning, grounding, and inference-stage use of copyrighted works infringe copyright or fall within existing exceptions. Despite that uncertainty, authorities in Europe and elsewhere have begun using competition law to require opt-outs, strengthen publishers’ bargaining position, and press platforms toward compensation.
This white paper argues that this approach targets the wrong market risk. Competition law cannot guarantee payment whenever AI-generated summaries reduce publisher traffic. It offers little basis for intervention when a nondominant AI entrant provides summaries, when Google offers them through a standalone service, or when Google contracts with only selected publishers. Those disputes primarily concern copyright and licensing.
The stronger antitrust concern involves competition among AI providers. By integrating AI Overviews into its dominant search engine and placing its own summaries above organic results, Google may divert users from rival assistants and agents that lack a comparable distribution channel. Antitrust authorities should therefore examine whether that integration impedes entry or favors Google’s own AI services. Copyright law should determine whether publishers’ works may be used and on what terms. Competition law should protect rivalry among Google and emerging AI providers.
I. Introduction: AI Overviews Revives an Old Fight
In May 2024, Google launched AI Overviews, a feature that places AI-generated summaries above the organic results for certain Google Search queries. Each overview offers a synthesized answer and links to the underlying web sources. Because the summaries appear at the top of the search-engine results page, publishers fear that users will find their answers without clicking through to the source websites.
Lower click-through rates could weaken publishers’ ability to earn advertising and subscription revenue from website traffic. Publishers therefore view AI Overviews as a threat to their business models and, more broadly, to the financial sustainability of online publishing.[1] Google offers a different account. It claims that the feature expands demand and that links appearing within AI Overviews receive higher click-through rates.[2]
The dispute may feel familiar. Platforms and publishers have spent years making the same competing claims about the online use of news content. That conflict has prompted litigation and policy interventions around the world, including new copyright protections and rules that encourage or require platforms to negotiate with publishers.[3]
In the European Union, the Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market (CDSM Directive) created a neighboring right covering the online use of press publications.[4] The provision’s limits and uncertainties have led authorities to enlist competition law in its enforcement. The aim has been to turn the publishers’ right into a credible bargaining tool, rebalance negotiations between news producers and online distributors, and prevent dominant platforms from frustrating the directive’s objectives.[5]
Other countries have used regulation to avoid the perceived limits of copyright law. Australia adopted a mandatory bargaining code designed by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission. That model has since influenced several other jurisdictions.[6]
AI Overviews has opened a new chapter in the same conflict, with many of the same parties and arguments. In December 2025, the European Commission opened a formal antitrust investigation into whether Google violated EU competition law by using publishers’ online content for artificial-intelligence purposes.[7] In April 2026, Brazil’s Administrative Council for Economic Defense, known as CADE, reopened an investigation into Google’s use of news content, including through AI Overviews, after dismissing the original inquiry in late 2024.[8]
The Japan Fair Trade Commission also launched a follow-up to its 2023 market study on news-content distribution. The agency cited concerns that generative-AI search providers may use news content to answer queries without news organizations’ permission.[9] In the United Kingdom, the Competition and Markets Authority used its digital-markets powers[10] to require Google to give publishers control over whether their content is used to ground responses generated by features such as AI Overviews. The requirement also allows publishers to opt out of having their content used to train, ground, or fine-tune AI models.[11]
The AI Overviews dispute differs from the earlier fight over online news in two important respects. First, publishers’ claim that online aggregators free ride on their work remains largely hypothetical and lacks consistent empirical support.[12] Early studies of AI Overviews, by contrast, point to measurable displacement of website traffic.
Second, the European copyright response to online news faced criticism from the outset as both unjustified and ineffective. Copyright has a more central role in the AI Overviews dispute. Courts and scholars are still debating whether using protected works to train AI models infringes copyright or falls within an exception. Antitrust authorities are intervening before those questions have been resolved, even as courts across several jurisdictions consider them. The Court of Justice of the European Union also has a relevant case pending.[13]
Despite these differences, the two debates appear to pursue the same objective through the same legal instrument. Authorities are invoking antitrust law to secure compensation for publishers even when platforms may neither free ride on news content nor infringe copyright.
This white paper argues that the effort to place antitrust law ahead of copyright law in disputes between AI providers and publishers targets the wrong market risk. Courts and legislatures should first resolve whether AI training and related uses constitute copyright infringement or fall within lawful exceptions. Competition law should focus instead on whether Google’s integration of AI Overviews into Search impairs competition among AI providers.
The more serious competition concern involves Google’s relationship with rival AI assistants and agents. By integrating AI Overviews into its dominant search engine, Google may favor its own AI service and divert users away from competing providers. Standalone AI services lack access to a comparable gateway. Preferential placement within Google Search could therefore impede entry and weaken competition among AI providers.
The distinction becomes clearer in three scenarios where AI Overviews may displace publisher traffic but antitrust law offers little or no basis for intervention on publishers’ behalf. The first arises when Google trains or grounds its model using content from selected publishers under agreements with only part of the industry. The second arises when a new AI entrant without market power offers AI-generated summaries. The third arises when Google offers AI Overviews as a standalone service rather than integrating it into Search.
Each scenario may disrupt publishers’ business models. Yet none necessarily presents a competition problem involving publishers. Competition law should focus principally on whether Google’s integration of AI Overviews harms the market for AI services. Copyright law should govern whether and on what terms AI providers may use publishers’ content.
Section II reviews the early empirical research on how AI tools affect online information consumption and publisher traffic. Section III examines whether the European copyright framework can address AI training and AI-generated summaries. Section IV evaluates recent efforts to use antitrust enforcement to strengthen publishers’ bargaining position and secure payment for their content. Section v explains why competition law should instead address the horizontal relationship between Google and rival AI providers whose entry and ability to compete may suffer when Google integrates AI Overviews into its dominant search service. Section VI concludes.
II. How AI Search Changes Web Traffic
AI Overviews uses Google’s Gemini model to aggregate and synthesize information from Google Search results and cited web sources. Through a process known as grounding, the system connects its response to external information and places a summary at the top of the search-engine results page for many queries.
AI Overviews differs from featured snippets, which usually reproduce one or two sentences from a single source. It combines information from multiple sources into a unified answer and can respond to more complex questions than traditional keyword-based search, including queries submitted through text, voice, or images.
AI Overviews has reached more than 2.5 billion monthly users. It forms part of a broader shift toward agentic artificial intelligence, which integrates more advanced AI capabilities into search and allows users to interact with assistants and agents more extensively.[14] Together with AI Mode, AI Overviews creates a connected generative-AI layer within Google Search. AI Overviews supplies a concise summary within conventional search results. AI Mode offers a conversational interface that supports follow-up questions, research, planning, exploration, and comparison.
More broadly, tools powered by large language models have attracted attention because they may change how users browse the web, conduct searches, and shop online.[15] AI Overviews presents a narrower question concerning how AI tools affect the production and distribution of online content. These tools may substitute for traditional search by answering users’ questions directly, or they may complement it by helping users discover additional sources.
Nicolas Padilla, H. Tai Lam, Anja Lambrecht, and Brett Hollenbeck provide early evidence that large-language-model adoption affected website traffic even before Google launched AI Overviews.[16] Their analysis finds particularly significant effects for small online content providers.
Qiaoni Shi, Kai Zhu, and Kai Gu compare ChatGPT sessions with Google searches to examine how AI search reallocates web traffic. They find that ChatGPT generates an outbound click in only 5.2% of conversations, far below Google’s referral rate. The remaining clicks also differ from a representative sample of Google traffic. They tend to favor specialized destinations and disfavor advertising-supported websites.[17]
Samira Gholami and coauthors reach a different conclusion. They find that rapid adoption of large language models coincides with sustained growth in the number of unique websites users visit. Their results suggest that AI tools may complement conventional web browsing by changing how users discover and consume information. Users increasingly combine large language models with traditional search rather than replacing one with the other.[18]
A growing body of research now focuses specifically on AI Overviews and its effects on website traffic and search behavior. Reports by Similarweb, the Pew Research Center, and Ahrefs find that users are less likely to click on links when a search-results page contains an AI-generated summary.[19] Estimates place the share of these “zero-click searches” at 68% in the United States.[20]
Saharsh Agarwal and Ananya Sen, as well as Haofei Xu, Umar Iqbal, and Jacob M. Montgomery, also find that AI Overviews diverts traffic from publishers, although they report a smaller increase in zero-click searches.[21] Mehrzad Khosravi and Hema Yoganarasimhan identify a similar causal effect on Wikipedia.[22] Exposure to AI Overviews reduced daily traffic to English-language Wikipedia articles by about 15%.
The effects differ across subjects. Culture-related articles experienced substantially larger declines, while articles concerning science, technology, engineering, and mathematics saw smaller effects.
Hangcheng Zhao and Ron Berman compare the launch of OpenAI’s ChatGPT in November 2022 with the introduction of Google AI Overviews in May 2024.[23] They find no clear evidence that news publishers suffered traffic losses after ChatGPT’s launch. The arrival of AI Overviews, by contrast, coincided with declines in both direct traffic and referrals from organic search results.
Zhao and Berman also examine how publishers respond to generative AI. Blocking automated crawlers through tools such as robots.txt can prevent AI systems from collecting content for model training or answering queries. Their findings suggest that this strategy may reduce publishers’ traffic because websites that block AI crawlers become less visible in AI-generated results. Publishers may fare better by investing in distinctive formats that large language models cannot easily reproduce, including multimedia and interactive features.
Riley Grossman and coauthors likewise find that Google Search, AI Overviews, and Gemini rely on substantially different sources, with little overlap among them.[24] Websites that block Google’s AI crawler are also less likely to appear in AI Overviews.
Other studies urge caution. Analyses of Semrush keyword data and clickstream data from Datos suggest that AI Overviews do not invariably reduce traffic and may coexist with other search features.[25] Their effects likely vary by query. Simple informational searches may produce larger declines in clicks, while branded searches, breaking news, original reporting, and queries requiring depth or authoritative sources may continue to send users to publishers’ websites.
Peibo Zhang, Ruomeng Cui, and Dennis J. Zhang identify a different effect on Reddit.[26] They find that AI Overviews increases engagement across communities of every size. Small and midsize communities experience the largest relative gains, which suggests that AI search can direct users toward communities they might not otherwise discover.
Further empirical work will be needed to measure the full effects of large-language-model tools on online information markets. The early evidence already shows that these tools can alter traffic flows, user behavior, and the distribution of revenue among search engines, AI providers, and content publishers.[27]
Search engines have traditionally earned revenue by monetizing users’ attention while directing them to third-party websites. Generative-AI tools may change that arrangement because a growing share of searches ends with an answer generated on the search page and no click to an external source.
Competition analysis must therefore distinguish between standalone AI chatbots and AI tools integrated into an established search engine. As Section v explains, that distinction determines whether the principal concern involves the use of publishers’ content or the ability of rival AI providers to reach users.
III. Copyright Law Struggles to Keep Pace with AI Search
Generative artificial intelligence has triggered extensive litigation and scholarly debate because it tests nearly every layer of traditional copyright law.[28] The main disputes concern the use of copyrighted works to train AI models, the copyrightability of AI-generated material, liability for infringing outputs, and the treatment of outputs that imitate a human creator’s identity or style.
Training and fine-tuning depend on vast quantities of data, much of it protected by copyright. Copyright can therefore create a substantial barrier to entry for AI developers and may slow further innovation.[29] At the same time, generative AI may threaten creative industries by producing literary and artistic works faster and at lower cost than human creators.
The proper legal response depends in part on empirical questions.[30] Generative-AI products may displace incumbent firms, expand demand by serving previously unmet needs, or do both. They may substitute for human-created works, but they may also raise creators’ productivity and reduce production costs. Their outputs may closely reproduce training materials or produce genuinely distinct works.[31]
Policymakers must therefore balance the benefits of encouraging creation against the costs that copyright restrictions impose on innovation. The legal framework must support creative industries without foreclosing entry and experimentation in artificial intelligence.
Publishers argue that Google AI Overviews creates a new form of free riding on their investments in content production. By summarizing a news article at the top of the search-results page, Google may satisfy users’ informational needs without sending them to the source. That can reduce referral traffic and allow Google to retain a greater share of advertising revenue.
Because publishers depend heavily on referral traffic, they contend that AI Overviews threatens the industry’s financial sustainability. They also argue that declining publisher revenue could weaken media pluralism, which supports informed democratic debate.[32]
These claims have familiar roots. For three decades, policymakers have sought ways to sustain journalism[33] as the internet and digital platforms changed how news is produced, distributed, and consumed.[34]
The European Union responded to concerns about free riding by creating a neighboring right for the online use of press content in the Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market, known as the CDSM Directive. The right was intended to encourage cooperation between press publishers and online intermediaries such as news aggregators, search engines, and social-media platforms.[35]
The protection excludes private or noncommercial uses by individuals, hyperlinking, and the use of individual words or very short extracts from a press publication. The directive also creates an exception for reproductions and extractions made for text and data mining, commonly known as TDM, unless the rights holder expressly opts out.[36]
AI Overviews exposes the limits of that framework. It remains uncertain whether the neighboring right applies when an AI-generated answer does not reproduce or make available protected expression beyond individual words or very short extracts.[37]
Scholars have raised similar doubts about the TDM exception.[38] The European Commission views the exception as broad enough to cover commercial AI training conducted on publicly available online content.[39] It also describes the opt-out mechanism as an essential means for rights holders to reserve their rights as text-and-data-mining technologies become more widely used, particularly in AI training.[40]
The Artificial Intelligence Act supports that view. It expressly refers to the TDM exceptions and requires providers to respect opt-outs declared under Article 4 of the CDSM Directive.[41]
Yet the opt-out system often operates poorly in practice. Rights holders may need to use several fragmented technical tools without assurance that developers will detect or honor their reservations.[42] AI developers, in turn, may face inconsistent or conflicting signals across large automated systems.
The system also appears better suited to training than to inference-stage uses. Inference occurs when a model generates a response to a user’s query. A system may retrieve and synthesize information from external sources during that process without incorporating the material into the model’s training.[43] Retrieval-augmented generation, for example, may use external data to improve a response without changing the model’s weights. That use does not necessarily qualify as training.
The European Commission has acknowledged that the current framework may require revision. It has announced plans to examine targeted changes to EU copyright law beyond the formal review of the CDSM Directive.[44] The stated goals include strengthening the licensing and enforcement of copyright and related rights in the AI context, improving creators’ remuneration, and making it easier for generative-AI providers to access protected content.[45]
The Court of Justice of the European Union is now considering the first case to address some of these questions.[46] In Like Company v. Google Ireland Ltd., a Hungarian court has asked whether the training and outputs of systems such as Gemini infringe exclusive rights under EU copyright law.
The dispute concerns responses generated by Google’s Gemini chatbot that included text partly identical to material on a press publisher’s website. The national court seeks guidance on the reproduction right and the right of communication to the public under the Information Society Directive,[47] as well as the TDM exception and the press publishers’ right under the CDSM Directive.
The possible obsolescence of the neighboring right has broader consequences for EU member states that adopted more interventionist versions of the CDSM Directive. Belgium, the Czech Republic, Greece, and Italy have introduced additional measures intended to strengthen publishers’ bargaining position. Although their systems differ, each draws in part on Australia’s mandatory-arbitration model.[48]
Those countries have assigned regulators or ministries a role in supporting negotiations and determining fair compensation when publishers and platforms cannot agree on terms for the online use of press publications. France is considering similar legislation.[49]
The Court of Justice recently upheld the Italian framework’s compatibility with the CDSM Directive.[50] It also clarified that the framework applies only when a platform uses press publications in a legally relevant manner. The ruling does not create a freestanding duty to negotiate or compensate publishers.
AI Overviews may encourage more member states to adopt bargaining regimes, increasing regulatory fragmentation across the European Union. Yet if the neighboring right cannot reach AI-generated summaries, those national efforts may prove ineffective. That outcome would strengthen the case for renewed copyright legislation at the EU level.
IV. Antitrust as a Back Door to Publisher Compensation
The debate over AI-generated summaries closely resembles the earlier fight over the online use of news content. The resemblance extends beyond copyright. Publishers have also turned to competition law in both disputes.
After pressing for the neighboring right created by the CDSM Directive, EU publishers remained dissatisfied with the results. They then sought help from antitrust authorities, hoping competition law would strengthen copyright enforcement and secure payment for their content.
Their main claim is that large technology platforms have weakened a relationship that could otherwise benefit both publishers and digital intermediaries.[51] Google and Meta serve as major gateways to online news and, in publishers’ view, have become unavoidable trading partners. Publishers depend heavily on Google Search and Facebook for referral traffic, which gives the platforms substantial bargaining power over how news appears and how users reach it.
Publishers argue that platforms do not negotiate over the use of snippets or other content. Instead, they offer a binary choice between participation on the platform’s terms and exclusion from its services.[52] Publishers also point to opaque ranking systems, limited transparency in advertising markets, mandatory publishing formats, and the platforms’ control over user data as evidence of this imbalance.
The same arguments now appear in the debate over AI Overviews. Critics describe the service as a break in the exchange that long governed the relationship between Google and publishers.[53] Publishers allowed Google to crawl their websites and build its search index. In return, Google sent them traffic that they could monetize through advertising or subscriptions.[54]
AI Overviews may weaken that exchange by answering users’ questions without requiring a click to the source. Yet publishers have long disputed the value of referral traffic and warned that snippets allowed platforms to free ride on their work. Empirical studies did not consistently support that claim. The risk of traffic displacement appears more concrete only with the rise of generative AI.
France provides the clearest example of using competition law to reinforce copyright. Since 2020, the French Competition Authority, known as the Autorité de la concurrence, has challenged Google’s response to the French law implementing the CDSM Directive. Google announced that it would display protected news content only if publishers authorized its use without charge.[55]
The authority treated that policy as a potential abuse of dominance and exploitation of publishers’ economic dependence. It argued that Google imposed unfair trading conditions under the threat of reduced visibility or de-indexing.[56] The Paris Court of Appeal endorsed that approach. The court held that the publishers’ right did not itself guarantee payment, but it required meaningful negotiations intended to allow publishers and news agencies to seek fair remuneration.[57]
The Autorité recently adopted a similar approach toward Meta. It accused the company of imposing its own method for calculating payment for reused news content while withholding information that publishers needed to evaluate Meta’s offers.[58]
The authority also appears ready to extend its framework to AI Overviews. It has argued that commitments imposed on Google in the news-content investigation can address new disputes involving artificial intelligence.[59]
In 2024, the Autorité sanctioned Google for failing to comply with commitments made during the investigation that began in 2020. The decision focused in part on Bard, the AI service later renamed Gemini.[60] The authority found that Google had neither informed publishers that it was using their content in the service nor provided a technical means to opt out without also affecting the display of protected content across other Google products. According to the authority, those failures impaired publishers’ ability to negotiate payment.
France has led this expansive use of competition law in disputes rooted in copyright. Other authorities have begun to follow.
The European Commission has opened an antitrust investigation into Google’s use of content from web publishers and YouTube creators for AI services.[61] The investigation asks whether Google imposes unfair terms on publishers and creators or gives itself privileged access to content that rival AI developers cannot obtain on comparable terms.
The Commission is also examining whether Google used publishers’ content in AI Overviews and AI Mode without adequate compensation and without offering a meaningful opt-out. That theory combines concerns about publishers’ bargaining position with a separate concern that Google may disadvantage rival AI providers.
Brazil’s Administrative Council for Economic Defense, known as CADE, has reopened an investigation into Google’s use of news content, including in AI Overviews. The new proceeding follows an earlier case that began in 2019 and ended in 2024.[62]
CADE’s current theory portrays publishers as structurally dependent on Google and treats the platform as an essential intermediary capable of imposing unilateral terms. Yet the agency’s earlier economic analysis reached the opposite conclusion.
In the prior investigation, CADE’s Department of Economic Studies found no support for the proposed theories of harm.[63] It found no incentive to exclude rivals, no basis for an essential-facilities claim, and a positive net flow of traffic from Google to publishers. It also found insufficient evidence that snippets caused users to stop visiting publishers’ websites. In 2024, CADE’s General Superintendence likewise recommended dismissal for lack of evidence of an antitrust violation.[64]
The United Kingdom has taken a regulatory route. Acting under the country’s digital-markets regime, the Competition and Markets Authority, known as the CMA, imposed several conduct requirements on Google.[65]
The CMA requires Google to give publishers control over whether their content grounds responses in generative-AI search features such as AI Overviews. Publishers must also be able to opt out of having their content used for model training, grounding, and fine-tuning.[66]
The CMA later added requirements governing the ranking of search results. Google must rank organic results according to objective and nondiscriminatory criteria, including within AI Overviews.[67]
The CMA initially proposed an opt-out limited to model training. After consultation, it expanded the requirement to include fine-tuning. Publishers argued that fine-tuning also uses their content and that excluding it would leave room for circumvention. The CMA agreed that control over fine-tuning could strengthen publishers’ bargaining position and prevent Google from avoiding the rule.[68]
The CMA insists that these requirements operate independently of copyright law. That distinction is, however, difficult to maintain. A competition-law opt-out directly affects how rights holders control protected material, how licensing negotiations proceed, and how future copyright reforms may operate.[69]
The disputes over online news and AI Overviews therefore follow the same pattern. Publishers first seek stronger copyright protection, then turn to competition law when copyright does not produce the desired bargaining outcome.[70] Authorities have repeatedly accommodated those demands by expanding copyright, using antitrust to reinforce it, or imposing antitrust remedies before copyright law has resolved the underlying rights.
V. Competition Law Should Focus on Rival AI Providers
As litigation and policy debates over copyright and artificial intelligence expand worldwide, the turn toward antitrust in disputes between AI providers and publishers targets the wrong market risk. Publishers have struggled to develop a sustainable business model since the rise of the internet, despite repeated policy interventions. Artificial intelligence now affects far more than publishing. Assistive and agentic AI are changing web browsing, online search, e-commerce, and other forms of digital intermediation while giving new firms a chance to challenge established incumbents.
Competition law should therefore examine whether incumbent firms use their existing market power to impede new AI providers. It should not sidestep unresolved copyright questions concerning the use of protected works in AI training and related applications.[71]
The launch of AI Overviews presents no inherent competition problem. It is a new product feature. The more plausible concern arises from Google’s decision to integrate it into a search engine in which Google has long held a dominant position.
Google places AI Overviews above organic results at the top of the search-engine results page. That placement favors Google’s own AI-generated summaries and may reduce users’ willingness to seek similar services from competing providers. Integration may therefore serve a defensive strategy by protecting Google Search against assistive and agentic AI services that could change how users obtain information and weaken the role of traditional search engines.[72]
AI assistants and agents are becoming significant competitive platforms. They increasingly allow users to reach third-party services without leaving the chat interface, rather than operating only as standalone question-and-answer tools.[73] AI Overviews shows how these services may reduce reliance on traditional intermediaries and redistribute revenue among firms. The growth of ChatGPT and Claude also shows that AI can help new entrants challenge incumbent platforms.
The main competition concern therefore stems from tying AI Overviews to Google Search. Google may use its search dominance to favor its own AI summaries, divert users from rival AI providers, and make entry more difficult. Standalone AI services may lack any comparable means of reaching users.
Competition authorities should still proceed carefully. New AI firms may be able to build integrated networks of products and services around standalone generative-AI offerings without owning an established search engine.[74] Authorities must therefore consider competition within each firm’s suite of services alongside competition among rival AI providers. An assessment of Google’s use of AI within its own services should account for competitive pressure from independent AI firms.[75]
Google also faces obligations under the Digital Markets Act (DMA) because the European Union has designated it as a gatekeeper.[76] AI services do not currently appear among the DMA’s listed core platform services. Yet AI functions incorporated into a gatekeeper’s existing services may still fall within the regulation’s reach.
The European Commission recently required Google to provide interoperability with important Android functions so that third-party AI providers can compete with Alphabet’s AI services, including Gemini.[77] The DMA does not impose comparable obligations on new AI firms, regardless of their growth or commercial importance, because standalone AI applications do not fall within the regulation’s enumerated categories.
Until courts or legislators resolve the relevant copyright questions, competition policy should give greater attention to the horizontal relationship between Google and rival AI assistants and agents. The possible exclusionary effects of integrating AI Overviews into Search warrant closer scrutiny than the vertical relationship between Google and publishers.
Competition law also cannot guarantee payment or negotiations for publishers whenever AI-generated summaries reduce traffic. At least three scenarios demonstrate the limits of antitrust intervention.
First, new AI providers may offer summaries without holding a dominant position. Their services may harm publishers as much as AI Overviews, as the growing body of copyright litigation suggests. Yet their lack of market power leaves little basis for an antitrust claim.
Second, Google could offer the same summarization service through Gemini without integrating it into Search. If Google lacks dominance in the market for AI assistants and agents, competition law would again provide no sound basis for intervention merely because publishers lose traffic.
Third, antitrust law may offer little help even when Google integrates AI Overviews into Search. Publishers criticize Google’s tailored licensing agreements with major media companies because those deals benefit only selected firms. Yet Google generally remains free to obtain content from publishers it considers especially valuable or reliable. Selective contracting does not, by itself, establish an antitrust violation.
These scenarios show that publishers’ claims primarily concern the scope and enforcement of copyright. Expanding antitrust law to secure payment for publishers would often fail to address their complaints and would distract from the more serious competition question concerning Google’s treatment of rival AI providers.
VI. Conclusion
Search engines have long determined how attention flows across the web. The bargain with publishers was imperfect but clear. Search engines captured value when users entered queries, while publishers supplied the underlying information and earned revenue when users clicked through to their websites.
AI-generated summaries are changing that arrangement. They can answer users’ questions within the search interface, weakening the link among search, referral traffic, and content production. Early evidence suggests that AI Overviews reduces clicks to outside websites, giving publishers’ concerns more empirical support than their earlier claims about snippets and news aggregation.
At the same time, artificial intelligence threatens Google’s traditional role as the web’s main gateway. Standalone services such as ChatGPT and Claude allow users to obtain information and reach third-party services without beginning with a conventional search engine. AI is therefore changing both the relationship between platforms and publishers and the competition between Google and new AI providers.
Copyright law should address the first problem. Courts and lawmakers have yet to determine when training, fine-tuning, grounding, and inference infringe protected rights or fall within existing exceptions. Antitrust authorities should not prejudge those questions by creating opt-outs, imposing negotiation duties, or engineering compensation through competition remedies.
Such remedies would also fail to solve publishers’ broader problem. Competition law offers little help when a nondominant AI entrant generates summaries, when Google offers the same service through a standalone AI product, or when Google contracts with only selected publishers. Those scenarios may reduce traffic, but they do not necessarily involve exclusionary conduct or market power.
Competition law has a more appropriate task. Authorities should examine whether Google’s integration of AI Overviews into its dominant search service favors Gemini, diverts users from rival AI assistants, and impedes entry by firms that lack a comparable distribution channel. That inquiry should focus on evidence of competitive harm rather than treat publisher compensation as an antitrust objective.
The rise of AI should not produce another cycle in which copyright disappoints publishers and antitrust is pressed into service as a substitute. Copyright law should determine whether AI providers may use publishers’ works and on what terms. Competition law should protect the rivalry that may decide whether Google remains the dominant gateway to online information.
[1] See, e.g., News/Media Alliance, Alliance President & CEO on Google Incorporating AI Tool Gemini into Search Engine: “This Will Be Catastrophic to Our Traffic” (May 15, 2024), https://www.newsmediaalliance.org/alliance-president-ceo-on-google-incorporating-ai-tool-gemini-into-search-engine-this-will-be-catastrophic-to-our-traffic.
[2] Nilay Patel, Google CEO Sundar Pichai on AI-Powered Search and the Future of the Web, The Verge (May 20, 2024), https://www.theverge.com/24158374/google-ceo-sundar-pichai-ai-search-gemini-future-of-the-internet-web-openai-decoder-interview.
[3] For a recent comparison of the proposed solutions and regulatory approaches, see, e.g., Giuseppe Colangelo, News Publishers, Digital Platforms, and Bargaining Codes: Debunking the Free-Riding Myth, 75 GRUR Int’l 19 (2026).
[4] Directive 2019/790, of the European Parliament and of the Council of 17 April 2019 on Copyright and Related Rights in the Digital Single Market and Amending Directives 96/9/EC and 2001/29/EC, art. 15, 2019 O.J. (L 130) 92. For commentary, see, e.g., Caterina Sganga, The Many Metamorphoses of Related Rights in EU Copyright Law: Unintended Consequences or Inevitable Developments?, 70 GRUR Int’l 821 (2021); Giuseppe Colangelo & Valerio Torti, Copyright, Online News Publishing and Aggregators: A Law and Economics Analysis of the EU Reform, 27 Int’l J.L. & Info. Tech. 75 (2019); Christophe Geiger, Oleksandr Bulayenko & Giancarlo Frosio, The Introduction of a Neighbouring Right for Press Publishers at EU Level: The Unneeded (and Unwanted) Reform, 39 Eur. Intell. Prop. Rev. 202 (2017).
[5] See Autorité de la concurrence, Decision No. 26-MC-02 (July 8, 2026), https://www.autoritedelaconcurrence.fr/en/article/related-rights-autorite-de-la-concurrence-imposes-interim-measures-and-orders-meta (imposing interim measures and ordering Meta to negotiate in good faith with press agencies and publishers). For a critical analysis, see Giuseppe Colangelo, Enforcing Copyright Through Antitrust? The Strange Case of News Publishers Against Digital Platforms, 10 J. Antitrust Enf’t 133 (2022).
[6] Treasury Laws Amendment (News Media and Digital Platforms Mandatory Bargaining Code) Act 2021 (Cth) (Austl.). For an overview of the countries that drew on the Australian model, see Colangelo, supra note 3.
[7] Press Release, Eur. Comm’n, Commission Opens Investigation into Possible Anticompetitive Conduct by Google in the Use of Online Content for AI Purposes (Dec. 8, 2025), https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/da/ip_25_2964.
[8] Press Release, Admin. Council for Econ. Def., CADE’s Tribunal Recommends the Opening of an Investigation into Google Regarding the Use of Journalistic Content (May 20, 2026), https://www.gov.br/cade/en/matters/news/cade2019s-tribunal-recommends-the-opening-of-an-investigation-into-google-regarding-the-use-of-journalistic-content.
[9] Japan Fair Trade Comm’n, Follow-Up Study on the News Content Distribution Sector (Dec. 24, 2025), https://www.jftc.go.jp/en/about_jftc/index_3_251224.html.
[10] Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024, c. 13 (UK).
[11] Press Release, Competition & Mkts. Auth., CMA Secures Fairer Deal for Publishers and Improves Google Search Services in UK (June 3, 2026), https://www.gov.uk/government/news/cma-secures-fairer-deal-for-publishers-and-improves-google-search-services-in-uk. Training, fine-tuning, and grounding describe three distinct ways an artificial-intelligence model acquires or uses information. Training builds the model’s general knowledge and language capabilities from a large corpus, producing the weights that encode what it has learned. Fine-tuning continues training on a smaller, targeted dataset to adjust the model’s behavior, tone, or domain-specific performance, but it does not reliably teach new facts. Grounding leaves the weights unchanged and instead connects the model to external, often real-time, information when it generates a response, improving accuracy and reducing fabrication.
[12] See, e.g., Susan Athey, Markus Mobius & Jeno Pal, The Impact of Aggregators on Internet News Consumption (NBER Working Paper No. 28746, 2021); Joan Calzada & Ricard Gil, What Do News Aggregators Do? Evidence from Google News in Spain and Germany, 39 Mktg. Sci. 134 (2020); Lesley Chiou & Catherine Tucker, Content Aggregation by Platforms: The Case of the News Media, 26 J. Econ. & Mgmt. Strategy 782 (2017).
[13] Case C-250/25, Like Co. v. Google Ireland Ltd. (Ct. J. Eur. Union).
[14] Sundar Pichai, I/O 2026: Welcome to the Agentic Gemini Era, News from Google (May 19, 2026), https://blog.google/innovation-and-ai/sundar-pichai-io-2026/#more-news; Elizabeth Reid, A New Era for AI Search, News from Google (May 19, 2026), https://blog.google/products-and-platforms/products/search/search-io-2026/#search-agents.
[15] See, e.g., Org. for Econ. Coop. & Dev., Artificial Intelligence and Competitive Dynamics in Downstream Markets 25 (Nov. 14, 2025), https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/artificial-intelligence-and-competitive-dynamics-in-downstream-markets_ccf0624a-en.html.
[16] Nicolas Padilla, H. Tai Lam, Anja Lambrecht & Brett Hollenbeck, The Impact of LLM Adoption on Online User Behavior (Jan. 2, 2026), https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=5393256. See also Gordon Burtch, Dokyun Lee & Zhichen Chen, The Consequences of Generative AI for Online Knowledge Communities, 14 Sci. Reps. 10413 (2024); R. Maria del Rio-Chanona, Nadzeya Laurentsyeva & Johannes Wachs, Large Language Models Reduce Public Knowledge Sharing on Online Q&A Platforms, 3 PNAS Nexus 400 (2024) (documenting ChatGPT’s effect on user activity and finding that activity on Stack Overflow declined after ChatGPT’s release).
[17] Qiaoni Shi, Kai Zhu & Kai Gu, Answering Without Referring: How AI Search Rewrites the Web’s Economic Bargain (July 8, 2026) (arXiv preprint), https://arxiv.org/abs/2607.07652v1.
[18] Samira Gholami, Cristiana Firullo, Cristobal Cheyre & Alessandro Acquisti, Beyond Search: LLM Adoption and Web Traffic Concentration (Feb. 21, 2026), https://ssrn.com/abstract=6238578.
[19] Rand Fishkin, In 2026, Less Than One Third of Google Searches Still Send a Click, SparkToro (June 8, 2026), https://sparktoro.com/blog/in-2026-less-than-one-third-of-google-searches-still-send-a-click; Ryan Law & Xibeijia Guan, Update: AI Overviews Reduce Clicks by 58%, Ahrefs Blog (Feb. 4, 2026), https://ahrefs.com/blog/ai-overviews-reduce-clicks-update; Athena Chapekis & Anna Lieb, Google Users Are Less Likely to Click on Links When an AI Summary Appears in the Results, Pew Rsch. Ctr. (July 22, 2025), https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/07/22/google-users-are-less-likely-to-click-on-links-when-an-ai-summary-appears-in-the-results.
[20] Fishkin, supra note 19.
[21] Saharsh Agarwal & Ananya Sen, Google AI Overviews and Publisher Traffic: Evidence from a Field Experiment (July 8, 2026), https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=6513059; Haofei Xu, Umar Iqbal & Jacob M. Montgomery, Measuring Google AI Overviews: Activation, Source Quality, Claim Fidelity, and Publisher Impact (May 13, 2026) (arXiv preprint), https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.14021.
[22] Mehrzad Khosravi & Hema Yoganarasimhan, Impact of AI Search Summaries on Website Traffic: Evidence from Google AI Overviews and Wikipedia (May 12, 2026) (arXiv preprint), https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.18455.
[23] Hangcheng Zhao & Ron Berman, Strategic Response of News Publishers to Generative AI (Apr. 21, 2026), https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=5992774.
[24] Riley Grossman, Songjiang Liu, Michael K. Chen, Mike Smith, Christian Borcea & Yi Chen, How Generative AI Disrupts Search: An Empirical Study of Google Search, Gemini, and AI Overviews (Apr. 30, 2026) (arXiv preprint), https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.27790.
[25] Jana Garanko, Semrush AI Overviews Study: What 2025 SEO Data Tells Us About Google’s Search Shift, Semrush (Dec. 15, 2025), https://www.semrush.com/blog/semrush-ai-overviews-study.
[26] Peibo Zhang, Ruomeng Cui & Dennis J. Zhang, The Impact of AI Search on the Online Content Ecosystem: Evidence from Google and Reddit (June 20, 2026) (arXiv preprint), https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.16428.
[27] See, e.g., Ariel Ezrachi & Giuseppe Colangelo, AI Ecosystems, Power Shifts, and EU Competition Law Enforcement (June 11, 2026), https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=6841798.
[28] See, e.g., Alexander Peukert, Copyright in the Artificial Intelligence Act—A Primer, 73 GRUR Int’l 497 (2024); Pamela Samuelson, Fair Use Defenses in Disruptive Technology Cases, 71 UCLA L. Rev. 1484 (2024); Mark A. Lemley & Bryan Casey, Fair Learning, 99 Tex. L. Rev. 743 (2021); Carys Craig & Ian Kerr, The Death of the AI Author, 52 Ottawa L. Rev. 31 (2020); Daniel J. Gervais, The Machine as Author, 105 Iowa L. Rev. 2053 (2020).
[29] Christian Peukert & Margaritha Windisch, The Economics of Copyright in the Digital Age, 39 J. Econ. Survs. 877 (2025).
[30] Joshua Gans, Shane Greenstein, Adam Jaffe, Brent Lutes, Abhishek Nagaraj, Imke Reimers, Michael D. Smith, Rahul Telang, Catherine Tucker & Joel Waldfogel, Identifying the Economic Implications of Artificial Intelligence for Copyright Policy: Context and Direction for Economic Research 10–13 (U.S. Copyright Off., Feb. 12, 2025), https://www.copyright.gov/newsnet/2025/1062.html?loclr=licop.
[31] See, e.g., Samuel G. Goldberg & H. Tai Lam, Generative AI & Creative Goods: Market Expansion, Crowd-Out, and Copyright (Mar. 9, 2026), https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=5152649 (finding that generative AI expands markets and improves quality while substantially crowding out non-generative AI production).
[32] See, e.g., Nicola Lucchi, The Impact of Google AI Summaries and Google AI Overviews on Publishers’ Revenue and Media Freedom (Eur. Parliament, Briefing No. PE 787.211, Apr. 22, 2026), https://www.europarl.europa.eu/thinktank/en/document/IUST_BRI(2026)787211.
[33] See, e.g., OECD, News in the Internet Age: New Trends in News Publishing (Oct. 18, 2010), http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/9789264088702-en; Fed. Trade Comm’n Staff, Potential Policy Recommendations to Support the Reinvention of Journalism (Oct. 18, 2010), https://www.ftc.gov/sites/default/files/documents/public_events/how-will-journalism-survive-internet-age/new-staff-discussion.pdf.
[34] See, e.g., Stigler Ctr. for the Study of the Econ. & the State, Protecting Journalism in the Age of Digital Platforms (July 1, 2019), https://www.chicagobooth.edu/-/media/research/stigler/pdfs/media—report.pdf.
[35] Directive 2019/790, supra note 4, art. 15.
[36] Id. art. 4.
[37] Lucchi, supra note 32.
[38] For an overview of the scholarly debate, see, e.g., Martin Senftleben, Text and Data Mining, Generative AI, and the Copyright Three-Step Test, 57 IIC 67 (2026); Tim W. Dornis, The Training of Generative AI Is Not Text and Data Mining, 47 Eur. Intell. Prop. Rev. 65 (2025); Eleonora Rosati, Is Text and Data Mining Synonymous with AI Training?, 19 J. Intell. Prop. L. & Prac. 851 (2024); Thomas Margoni & Martin Kretschmer, A Deeper Look into the EU Text and Data Mining Exceptions: Harmonisation, Data Ownership, and the Future of Technology, 71 GRUR Int’l 685 (2022).
[39] Eur. Comm’n, Call for Tenders for a Feasibility Study on a Central Registry of Opt-Outs Under the Text and Data Mining (TDM) Exception (Jan. 23, 2025), https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/funding/call-tenders-feasibility-study-central-registry-opt-outs-under-text-and-data-mining-tdm-exception.
[40] Id.
[41] Regulation 2024/1689, of the European Parliament and of the Council of 13 June 2024 Laying Down Harmonised Rules on Artificial Intelligence and Amending Regulations (EC) No. 300/2008, (EU) No. 167/2013, (EU) No. 168/2013, (EU) 2018/858, (EU) 2018/1139, and (EU) 2019/2144 and Directives 2014/90/EU, (EU) 2016/797, and (EU) 2020/1828 (Artificial Intelligence Act), recital 105, art. 53(1)(c), 2024 O.J. (L 1689) 1.
[42] Eur. Comm’n, Directorate-Gen. for Commc’ns Networks, Content & Tech., Visionary Analytics & Capgemini Invent, Study to Assess the Feasibility of a Registry of Text and Data Mining Opt-Outs Expressed by Rightholders: Final Report (2026), https://data.europa.eu/doi/10.2759/4959861. The study finds that existing text-and-data-mining opt-out mechanisms are fragmented, inconsistently implemented, and often ineffective. Rightholders must combine several tools without assurance that developers will detect or honor their reservations, while developers face inconsistent and sometimes conflicting signals across web-scale automated systems. The study therefore proposes an EU registry using digital-fingerprinting technology to provide persistent, unambiguous, and machine-readable opt-out signals. The registry would supplement, rather than replace, existing sector-specific systems.
[43] See, e.g., Peter Mezei, Martin Kretschmer, Thomas Margoni, Alexander Peukert & João Pedro Quintais, Comment of the European Copyright Society on the Request for Preliminary Ruling in Case C-250/25 (Like Company), 57 IIC 850 (2026); Tim W. Dornis & Nicola Lucchi, Generative AI and the Scope of EU Copyright Law: A Doctrinal Analysis in Light of the Referral in Like Company v. Google, 56 IIC 1800 (2025).
[44] Eur. Comm’n, Report on the Review of the Copyright in the Digital Single Market Directive/Targeted Initiative for a Better Copyright Environment for European Creativity and Innovation, Call for Evidence, Ares(2026)4845636 (2026), https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/better-regulation/have-your-say/initiatives/18173-Targeted-initiative-for-a-better-copyright-environment-for-European-creativity-and-innovation_en.
[45] Id.
[46] Like Co., Case C-250/25. But see Mezei et al., supra note 43, at 850 (questioning the judgment’s relevance because the reference conflates chatbots, large language models, and search engines—distinct technologies and services implicating different rights under European Union law—and inconsistently identifies the right at issue: the press publishers’ right under Article 15 of the Copyright in the Digital Single Market Directive).
[47] Directive 2001/29, of the European Parliament and of the Council of 22 May 2001 on the Harmonisation of Certain Aspects of Copyright and Related Rights in the Information Society, arts. 2–3, 2001 O.J. (L 167) 10.
[48] For an analysis of these laws, see Colangelo, supra note 3.
[49] See Sénat, Proposition de loi visant à renforcer l’effectivité des droits voisins des éditeurs et des agences de presse (2026), https://www.senat.fr/travaux-parlementaires/textes-legislatifs/la-loi-en-clair/proposition-de-loi-visant-a-renforcer-leffectivite-des-droits-voisins-des-editeurs-et-des-agences-de-presse.html.
[50] Case C-797/23, Meta Platforms Ireland Ltd. v. Autorità per le Garanzie nelle Comunicazioni, ECLI:EU:C:2026:395 (May 12, 2026). Belgium’s implementation is also under review. See Case C-663/24, Google Ireland Ltd. et al. v. Premier ministre et al. (Ct. J. Eur. Union).
[51] See, e.g., Stigler Ctr., supra note 34; Frances Cairncross, The Cairncross Review: A Sustainable Future for Journalism (Feb. 12, 2019), https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-cairncross-review-a-sustainable-future-for-journalism; Damien Geradin, Complements and/or Substitutes? The Competitive Dynamics Between News Publishers and Digital Platforms and What It Means for Competition Policy (TILEC Discussion Paper No. 2019-003, 2019), https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3338941.
[52] See, e.g., Austl. Competition & Consumer Comm’n, Digital Platforms Inquiry: Final Report 232 (Mar. 27, 2019), https://www.accc.gov.au/inquiries-and-consultations/finalised-inquiries-and-monitoring/digital-platforms-inquiry-2017-19.
[53] See, e.g., Madhavi Singh & Fiona M. Scott Morton, A Roadmap for a Monopolization Case Against Google: Monopsony Power and AI Overviews, 174 U. Pa. L. Rev. (forthcoming 2026); CMA, Google’s General Search Services: Proposed Conduct Requirements—Introduction to the Consultation ¶ 2.8 (Jan. 28, 2026), https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/googles-general-search-services-proposed-conduct-requirements.
[54] CMA, supra note 53, ¶ 2.8.
[55] In response to French rules establishing criteria for compensating publishers for their neighboring rights in online news, Google announced that it would stop displaying article excerpts, photographs, infographics, and videos across its services unless publishers authorized their use free of charge.
[56] See Autorité de la concurrence, Decision No. 20-MC-01, Requests for Interim Measures by the Syndicat des Éditeurs de la Presse Magazine, the Alliance de la Presse d’Information Générale and Others, and Agence France-Presse (Apr. 9, 2020), https://www.autoritedelaconcurrence.fr/en/decision/requests-interim-measures-syndicat-des-editeurs-de-la-presse-magazine-alliance-de-la. The Autorité issued its decision on the merits in 2022. See Autorité de la concurrence, Decision No. 22-D-13, Practices Implemented in the Press Sector (June 21, 2022), https://www.autoritedelaconcurrence.fr/en/decision/regarding-practices-implemented-press-sector.
[57] Cour d’appel [CA] [regional court of appeal] Paris, Oct. 8, 2020, Google LLC v. Syndicat des Éditeurs de la Presse Magazine (Fr.).
[58] Autorité de la concurrence, supra note 5.
[59] Anna Ferrari, French Google Case Sets Example on How Commitments Can Catch New AI Use of Publishers’ Content, MLex (May 12, 2026), https://www.mlex.com/mlex/articles/2476168/french-google-case-sets-example-on-how-commitments-can-catch-new-ai-use-of-publishers-content.
[60] Autorité de la concurrence, Decision No. 24-D-03 (Mar. 15, 2024), https://www.autoritedelaconcurrence.fr/en/decision/regarding-compliance-commitments-decision-22-d-13-21-june-2022-autorite-de-la-concurrence.
[61] Eur. Comm’n, supra note 7.
[62] CADE, supra note 8.
[63] Departamento de Estudos Econômicos do Conselho Administrativo de Defesa Econômica, Nota Técnica No. 24/2023/DEE/CADE (2023), https://sei.cade.gov.br/sei/modulos/pesquisa/md_pesq_documento_consulta_externa.php?HJ7F4wnIPj2Y8B7Bj80h1lskjh7ohC8yMfhLoDBLddY6IZhQWFlRDmST1RQcspnlW1x9t6x01LadVtOKNionuQ960Q1Gg5heKwC5g9UFt-RzfyXxgWsFNjti4bd-TUFf.
[64] Superintendência-Geral do Conselho Administrativo de Defesa Econômica, Nota Técnica No. 70/2024/CGAA11/SGA1/SG/CADE (2024), https://sei.cade.gov.br/sei/modulos/pesquisa/md_pesq_documento_consulta_externa.php?HJ7F4wnIPj2Y8B7Bj80h1lskjh7ohC8yMfhLoDBLddYhYzgDyOUJ75GboeN2PJR3JNjn6Nmo8xmXxl5MS5KRnf8CuaeR-PEedrWBaKF0nh4kBOawa7f3VoD5kHYjPmTF.
[65] CMA, supra note 11. The other measures address fair ranking, choice screens, and data portability.
[66] Although publishers have broadly supported the opt-out remedy, some scholars question its effectiveness, arguing that it will neither stop traffic diversion nor give publishers meaningful new choices in dealing with Google Search. See, e.g., Spencer Cohen & Todd Davies, Opt-Out Remedies Will Not Fix AI Overviews (forthcoming), J. Eur. Competition L. & Prac.; Singh & Scott Morton, supra note 53.
[67] CMA, Further CMA Action to Secure a Fairer Deal for Businesses and Improve Google Search Services in UK (June 17, 2026), https://www.gov.uk/government/news/further-cma-action-to-secure-a-fairer-deal-for-businesses-and-improve-google-search-services-in-uk.
[68] CMA, supra note 11.
[69] See, e.g., Magali Eben, Bargaining Through Competition Law? The Publishers Saga Continues in the UK with CMA Conduct Requirements Imposed on Google, CREATe (June 23, 2026), https://www.create.ac.uk/working-papers/2026/06/23/new-working-paper-bargaining-through-competition-law-the-publishers-saga-continues-in-the-uk-with-cma-conduct-requirements-imposed-on-google.
[70] Id.
[71] Similarly, see Cohen & Davies, supra note 66 (arguing that AI Overviews principally harm competition not by using publishers’ content without compensation, but by keeping traffic on Google’s own website).
[72] See, e.g., Padilla et al., supra note 16.
[73] See, e.g., Autorité de la concurrence, Conversational Agents: The Autorité Starts Inquiries Ex Officio with a View to Issuing an Opinion (2026), https://www.autoritedelaconcurrence.fr/en/press-release/conversational-agents-autorite-starts-inquiries-ex-officio-view-issuing-opinion.
[74] Ezrachi & Colangelo, supra note 27. See also Taiwan Fair Trade Comm’n, Public Consultation Report and Policy Statement on Generative Artificial Intelligence and Competition (May 29, 2026), https://www.ftc.gov.tw/internet/english/doc/docDetail.aspx?uid=179&docid=18369 (suggesting that generative AI will increasingly develop through integrated ecosystems).
[75] Ezrachi & Colangelo, supra note 27.
[76] Regulation 2022/1925, of the European Parliament and of the Council of 14 September 2022 on Contestable and Fair Markets in the Digital Sector and Amending Directives (EU) 2019/1937 and (EU) 2020/1828 (Digital Markets Act), 2022 O.J. (L 265) 1.
[77] Press Release, Eur. Comm’n, Commission Provides Guidance to Google for AI Interoperability on Android and Sharing of Google Search Data Under the Digital Markets Act (July 16, 2026), https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/api/files/document/print/en/ip_26_1634/IP_26_1634_EN.pdf.