The European Union Investigates Google: When AI Becomes a Competition Issue

Source: Il Sole 24 Ore – “The EU Investigates Google: Gemini AI Is Being Fed in an Unfair Manner”, December 2025

Brussels’ hypothesis: AI trained on others’ content

According to Il Sole 24 Ore, the European Commission has opened a formal investigation into Google to assess whether the development and training of the artificial intelligence system Gemini violate European antitrust rules. The suspicion is that the Mountain View giant uses editorial and informational content produced by third parties to strengthen its AI models, without providing adequate economic compensation and without ensuring fair conditions for the operators who create that content.

This is not a mere technical detail, but a decisive turning point: if confirmed, the allegation would show how generative AI can become a tool for the systemic appropriation of informational value produced by others.

Generative AI and structural market imbalance

The core of the investigation is not innovation per se, but the dominant position of an actor that simultaneously controls infrastructure, data, distribution and output. Google is not just a search engine; it is a platform that intermediates access to global information. If that same platform uses editorial content to train its AI and then delivers synthetic answers that reduce traffic to the original sources, the risk is a closed loop that penalises publishers, creators and competitors.

In this framework, AI does not accelerate competition: it compresses it.

Google’s response and the “obstacle to innovation” argument

Google rejects the allegations, arguing that limiting the use of content would slow down the development of artificial intelligence and harm the digital ecosystem. This is a familiar defensive line: any attempt at regulation is framed as a brake on progress.

Yet the European investigation raises a deeper question: innovation for whom?If innovation is built by transferring value from content producers to a dominant platform, the issue is not technological, but economic and democratic.

From search to AI: the power to redefine knowledge

With generative AI, control no longer concerns visibility alone, but transformation. Gemini does not merely index content; it reprocesses it, summarises it and responds directly. This shift radically changes the relationship between source and user, because the platform becomes a cognitive intermediary.

When a Big Tech company decides how information is recombined and delivered, it exercises cultural and political power that goes far beyond the market.

Why this investigation concerns everyone

The inquiry into Google Gemini is not a dispute between Brussels and a multinational corporation. It is a test of the future of Europe’s digital economy. At stake are:

• the sustainability of editorial and creative work,

• competition in AI markets,

• transparency in the use of data and content,

• citizens’ right to a pluralistic information ecosystem.

Algopolio’s role: monitoring where power concentrates

Algopolio was created to read these shifts before they become irreversible. When a platform accumulates data, infrastructure, algorithms and the capacity to generate content, the risk is not only economic, but systemic.

The association acts to:

• analyse mechanisms of algorithmic concentration,

• support citizens, publishers and professionals affected by opaque practices,

• promote transparency and accountability in the use of AI,

• challenge development models that transfer value without consent.

The investigation into Google Gemini sends a clear signal: the age of AI requires new rules and new forms of protection.Algopolio works to ensure that artificial intelligence remains a shared progress, not yet another lever of domination by Big Tech.