The US Justice Division is probing whether or not Alphabet’s Google violated antitrust legislation in its settlement with Character.AI that enables the tech large to make use of the AI startup’s know-how, Bloomberg Legislation reported on Thursday.
Antitrust enforcers have lately instructed Google they’re inspecting whether or not it structured an settlement with Character.AI to keep away from formal authorities merger scrutiny, the report stated, citing individuals with data of the matter.
Google final yr signed a licensing take care of Character.AI that granted the search engine large a non-exclusive license to the chatbot maker’s giant language mannequin know-how.
The corporate additionally employed Character.AI co-founders Noam Shazeer and Daniel De Freitas, each former Google staff.
“We’re at all times comfortable to reply any questions from regulators,” a Google spokesperson stated. “We’re excited that expertise from Character.AI joined the corporate however we’ve got no possession stake and so they stay a separate firm.”
Character.AI and the DoJ didn’t instantly reply to Reuters requests for remark.
The DOJ can scrutinize whether or not the deal itself is anti-competitive even when didn’t require a proper evaluate, the report stated, including the antitrust probe was in early levels and should not result in an enforcement motion.
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