EU regulators to examine whether Google unfairly leveraged web and YouTube content to power AI products, potentially disadvantaging publishers and rival model developers.
The European Commission has formally launched an antitrust investigation into Google over allegations that the company may have violated EU competition law by using online content from publishers and YouTube creators to develop and enhance its artificial intelligence services. The inquiry seeks to determine whether Google’s practices amount to unfair self-preferencing or impose imbalanced conditions on content providers who depend on the platform for visibility and revenue.
According to the Commission, the investigation centers on Google’s use of publisher material to generate AI Overviews and AI Mode responses displayed directly within search results. These features present users with AI-generated summaries that, in many cases, reduce the need to click through to source websites. For publishers, particularly in traffic-sensitive sectors such as news, entertainment, and gambling affiliates, AI summaries have been linked to notable visibility declines. Industry stakeholders have raised concerns that Google’s growing use of AI-generated content could further undermine the traditional search-driven traffic model.
The Commission will simultaneously review Google’s use of YouTube videos and creator uploads as training data for its AI models. Under current platform rules, creators must grant broad permissions that allow Google to use their content for machine learning and AI development. However, competing AI developers are prohibited from accessing the same material, a dynamic regulators fear could reinforce Google’s dominant position by granting it exclusive data advantages.
If the Commission concludes that Google exploited its dominance in search or user-generated video platforms, the conduct could be deemed a violation of Article 102 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union and Article 54 of the EEA Agreement. Regulators underscored that publishers and creators often rely heavily on Google Search and YouTube exposure, making it commercially difficult to refuse Google’s terms or opt out of content usage.
The Commission has prioritised the investigation, though EU law imposes no fixed timeline for completion. The final outcome will depend on the complexity of the issues, the evidence collected, and the level of cooperation from Google and industry stakeholders.
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