The Antitrust Agencies Should Block OpenAI’s Windsurf Acquisition To Support AI Innovation
Summary
Ketan Ahuja writes that recent government wins against Big Tech demonstrate the prudence of proactively stopping consolidation in the emerging AI startup ecosystem to prevent harm to innovation and consumers. Similarly, the Federal Trade Commission’s lawsuit against Meta for monopolizing personal social media through its acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp has just begun its trial phase. A lot of the value in the AI ecosystem is now anticipated to be in the application layer: the software tools that harness and direct LLMs to perform useful functions such as coding and graphic design. It is hard to estimate the market size of this fast-growing category, but it has billions in funding and looks set to significantly reshape software development, which employs nearly two million people in the United States. Interoperability between platforms and applications has been a critical remedy sought in Big Tech antitrust cases, and it is a core pillar of the Digital Markets Act in Europe.