The UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) is requesting input from third parties on Microsoft and Amazon’s partnerships with smaller AI firms. The CMA is evaluating the nature of Microsoft’s investments in French AI company Mistral and Amazon’s funding of US-based Anthropic, as well as Microsoft’s recruitment of staff from Inflection AI.

This request for comments, due by May 9, is part of preliminary steps before a potential formal review to determine if these interactions constitute mergers. This scrutiny reflects the CMA’s increased focus on large tech companies’ impact on competition, reminiscent of its earlier intervention in Microsoft’s proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard.

A Microsoft spokesperson said in a statement that “we remain confident that common business practices such as the hiring of talent or making a fractional investment in an AI start-up promote competition and are not the same as a merger.”

“We will provide the UK Competition and Markets Authority with the information it needs to complete its inquiries expeditiously,” the spokesperson added.

An Amazon spokesperson expressed that the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) reviewing the collaboration between the company and Anthropic was an unprecedented occurrence.

“Unlike partnerships between other AI startups and large technology companies, our collaboration with Anthropic includes a limited investment, doesn’t give Amazon a board director or observer role, and continues to have Anthropic running its models on multiple cloud providers,” Amazon’s spokesperson said.

“By investing in Anthropic, which has just released its industry-best, new Claude 3 models, we’re helping make the generative AI segment more competitive than it’s been the last couple years. And, customers are very excited about the opportunities this collaboration is providing them. We’re confident that the facts speak for themselves, and hope the CMA agrees to resolve this quickly.”

A spokesperson from Anthropic informed CNBC that the company maintains its independence from Amazon. Furthermore, the relationship with the technology giant does not affect Anthropic’s freedom to collaborate with other entities

“We intend to cooperate with the CMA and provide them with the complete picture about Amazon’s investment and our commercial collaboration,” the spokesperson told CNBC via emailed statement.

“Anthropic’s independence is a core attribute — integral both to our public benefit mission and to serving our customers wherever and however they prefer to access Claude,” the company added.

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