Microsoft has been subject to a comprehensive regulatory investigation in the United Kingdom following the hiring of the main staff of Inflection AI, an OpenAI competitor based in the United States that Microsoft had previously invested in.
The hiring of Mustafa Suleyman, the co-founder of Inflection, and the majority of the startup’s employees will be evaluated to determine whether it qualifies as a merger under U.K. law and, as such, may lead to less competition in the artificial intelligence industry, according to a statement released on Tuesday by Britain’s Competition and Markets Authority.
Phase one of the merger examination into the collaboration is currently underway by the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), with a deadline of September 11th to decide whether to move forward with a second phase of the probe.
Microsoft’s AI aspirations may encounter a roadblock if the case moves on to the phase two stage.
Suleyman and several other important staff members at Microsoft were hired from Inflection, the company revealed in March, reported by Newsng.
As CEO of Microsoft AI, a recently established division of the corporation devoted to artificial intelligence products—such as Copilot, the AI assistant—Suleyman was named executive vice president of Microsoft. Copilot was integrated into Microsoft 365 and Windows software.
“We are confident that the hiring of talent promotes competition and should not be treated as a merger,” says Microsoft spokesperson Robin Koch in a statement to The Verge.
“ We will provide the UK Competition and Markets Authority with the information it needs to complete its enquiries expeditiously.”
Regulators in the EU and the UK have been examining Big Tech’s AI collaborations and investments more and more. Despite expressing interest in Microsoft’s Mistral AI relationship, the CMA determined that the merger regulations did not warrant an investigation into the partnership.
We earlier reported that TomTom and Microsoft have partnered to deliver maps and traffic data in return for artificial intelligence capabilities.
