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Blue Links, not Black Boxes – Competition Investigation opened into Google’s AI Summaries
If you type a search query into Google (or indeed, most major search engines), you will see at the top of the page an “AI Overview” box, with the usual blue links to individual websites (sometimes called “organic results”) following after.
Screenshot: AI Overview’s response to search query “holiday destinations in February”
On 9 December 2025, the European Commission opened a formal antitrust investigation to assess, among others, whether Google’s use of web publishers’ content to provide AI summaries could constitute an abuse of dominance under Article 102 TFEU. In particular, the Commission was concerned that Google may have been doing so (1) without providing appropriate compensation to publishers, and (2) without offering the possibility to refuse such use of their content without losing access to Google Search.
Anticompetitive effects / pro-competitive justifications
Several studies point to likely anticompetitive effects of this behaviour. For example, one recent study by the Pew Research Centre suggested that people only clicked a link once in every 100 searches when there was an AI summary at the top of the page. A separate study by Bain & Company notes that 80% of consumers now rely on AI-written results, with a corresponding reduction in organic web traffic by 15-25%. Publishers like the Daily Mail have also claimed that the number of people who visit its website from Google Search results have fell by about 50% since Google introduced its AI overview feature.
This represents a concern for web publishers or content creators who may rely on Google Search for a substantial amount of web traffic (and hence ad revenue, user visibility etc). This is especially concerning, it is argued, if this comes as a result of the use of publishers’ / creators’ works to train the AI summary model, without options to opt-out without losing access to Google Search.
Pro-competitive justifications will likely be offered in response – e.g. that AI summaries improve the functionality or value of Google Search, that dong so is indeed pro-competitive as it results in better consumer outcomes and welfare, or perhaps point to the fact that Google’s AI summaries attempt to link the user to original source webpages. It would also need to be shown that any possible justifications could not have been achieved through less restrictive alternative means.
Big tech antitrust cases, other copyright issues
We are unlikely to see the results of the Commission’s investigation in the immediate future, and any possible litigation, subsequent appeals, and follow-on claims will likely take many years to resolve. In the meantime however, it is worth noting that big tech players are certainly familiar with competition law investigations into such conduct – for a nostalgic example see the Commission’s decision to fine Microsoft for tying the Internet Explorer browser to Windows. A proper assessment in each case of what is likely to amount to anti-competitive behaviour will involve fact-intensive exercises, requiring very significant amounts of evidence, which can only be properly evaluated in court if the Commission decides to issue a case following the investigation.
Readers following the AI regulation space will also notice that Google’s behaviour raises parallel but distinct issues with respect to copyright law. Similar arguments regarding compensation and opt-out provisions have been run with respect to unauthorised AI training and copyright law (see e.g. the UK Government’s ongoing AI / IP consultation, or recent High Court judgment in Getty Images v Stability AI). A very substantive amount of commentary surrounding these issue has been written – and as regulators catch up with enforcement measures we get ever-closer to seeing how the hammer will fall.
Solomon Chann is a Trainee Solicitor at Bristows and a member of the SCL Trainee Group
