The Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) are gearing up to investigate major AI companies for potential anticompetitive practices, as reported by Politico on June 6.

Under this arrangement, the DOJ plans to scrutinize Nvidia's market position in supplying high-end semiconductors to the AI sector, where estimates indicate the company holds as much as 90% of the market share.

Simultaneously, the FTC will focus on assessing whether Microsoft and OpenAI benefit unfairly from their positions in AI and large language models (LLMs) technology.

The FTC and DOJ will retain jurisdiction over Amazon and Google, each facing separate AI-related investigations in addition to existing antitrust inquiries.

Another investigation reportedly in progress involves Microsoft's deal with Inflection AI, under scrutiny by the FTC to determine if it was structured to circumvent government antitrust reviews.

Both the DOJ and FTC have not officially confirmed nor denied the existence of these investigations, Politico noted, highlighting the agencies' limited ability to proceed without an agreement.

Earlier in July 2023, the FTC initiated a case concerning potential consumer protection violations by OpenAI related to its AI models.

In January, the FTC requested information from Google, Anthropic, Amazon, Microsoft, and OpenAI, seeking details about their investments, partnerships, and competitive dynamics in AI resources. This information could inform future regulatory actions.

In March, the UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) announced its own investigation into several of these companies, including Microsoft, Amazon, and Inflection.