A frequent criticism of regulators in the tech world is that they are always fighting the last war. Markets move too fast for slow-moving antitrust investigations and legal cases to have much effect.
That complaint is about to be put to the test in the artificial intelligence market, which has been on a tear since the launch of ChatGPT. The US court ruling that declared Google an illegal monopoly in internet search is barely a week old, but there are already close similarities in the way competition is developing in AI. Will the search ruling do anything to influence the way the market develops?
This week, Google showed off its first true AI voice assistant, called Gemini Live. Designed as a natural-sounding conversational interface, assistants like this could one day become the main way people interact with smartphones. Rather than go to a search engine or open an app, just talk to the phone to find information or get things done.