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UK moves to curb Google’s search dominance under new Big Tech powers

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Britain’s competition regulator has designated Google as having strategic market status in online search — a landmark ruling that gives the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) sweeping new powers to reshape how the tech giant operates in the UK.

The CMA said Google controls over 90% of all UK search traffic, cementing a dominant position in both search and search advertising. The designation, announced Friday, does not imply wrongdoing but allows the regulator to intervene directly to ensure fairer competition and impose fines for non-compliance.

The CMA outlined potential changes earlier this year, including fairer ranking systems, easier switching to alternative search engines, and greater publisher control over how their content is used in AI-generated responses. These measures could particularly affect Google’s AI Overviews and AI Mode features, though its Gemini AI assistant remains outside the current scope.

Google’s Senior Director for Competition, Oliver Bethell, argued the proposals “would inhibit UK innovation and growth” at a time of “profound AI-based innovation.” The company recently announced a £5 billion investment in Britain.

The ruling marks the CMA’s first use of its expanded Big Tech authority, introduced to address the dominance of firms like Google, Apple, and Amazon. The regulator’s second probe—into mobile operating systems—could also lead to another designation targeting Android.

The move follows mounting global scrutiny: the EU fined Google $3.45 billion for antitrust violations in ad tech last month, while U.S. regulators are pressing to break up parts of its advertising empire.

Competition lawyer Tom Smith, a former CMA director, said the decision could rebalance the market by “giving website operators more control over how their content is used for AI training,” curbing Google’s advantage in artificial intelligence.

Google Tests AI-Only Version of Search Engine with New “AI Mode”

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Google has launched an experimental version of its search engine that removes the traditional 10 blue links in favor of AI-generated summaries. This new feature, available to subscribers of Google One AI Premium, can be accessed by clicking on a tab labeled “AI Mode” alongside options like Images and Maps.

Robby Stein, Vice President of Product at Google, explained that the company had received feedback from power users who wanted AI responses for a broader range of searches. Google One AI Premium is a $19.99 per month subscription that offers additional cloud storage and access to exclusive AI features.

In its ongoing push to integrate AI into search, Google has introduced AI Overviews, which provide summaries of search results above the usual links to webpages. These Overviews are already available in over 100 countries, and last year, Google began incorporating ads into these AI summaries.

With AI Mode, the company takes this a step further by offering more detailed AI summaries with links to the sources. The traditional blue links are replaced by a search bar, allowing users to ask follow-up questions. Powered by Google’s custom Gemini 2.0 model, AI Mode is designed with advanced reasoning capabilities, making it more adept at handling complex queries.

This new development represents a significant move for Google, as it faces increased competition from Microsoft-backed OpenAI, which introduced search functions in ChatGPT last October. AI-driven search is now a major area of focus for Google, with Alphabet’s 2024 revenue—mostly driven by search-related advertising—under threat from emerging AI competitors.

However, the shift to AI-powered search has raised concerns. In February, educational technology company Chegg filed a lawsuit against Google, accusing the AI previews of diminishing the demand for original content and harming publishers’ ability to compete.