UK opens antitrust investigation into Amazon over its ties to AI startup Anthropic

The UK’s antitrust regulator is set to carry out an antitrust investigation into Amazon and its ties with AI startup Anthropic. This comes after Amazon completed a $4 billion investment into the company. For the uninitiated, Anthropic is the organization behind the AI chatbot Claude.

The investigation will decide whether the aforementioned $4 billion investment qualifies as a merger under current regulations set forth by the country’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA.) If it’s officially considered a merger, the investigation will then look into whether or not it will harm competition in the country. The investigators have 40 working days to come to a decision.

Amazon has previously stated the investment does not give it a majority stake in Anthropic, according to a report by TechCrunch. The company also told Financial Times that the investment “does not raise any competition concerns or meet the CMA’s own threshold for review.” Anthropic has also dismissed the notion that the investment indicates a merger of any kind.

“We are an independent company,” a spokesperson said in a statement. “Amazon does not have a seat on Anthropic’s board, nor does it have any board observer rights. We intend to cooperate with the CMA and provide them with a comprehensive understanding of Amazon’s investment and our commercial collaboration.”

The investigation is a small piece of a larger puzzle in which UK regulators look to curb “quasi-mergers.” This is when larger companies exert outsized influence over startups via strategic investments or by scooping up talent. This would, in theory, give the older company all of the benefits of a merger but without the regulatory scrutiny that would accompany an official acquisition.

To that end, the CMA is also preparing to launch an investigation into Google and its own massive investments into Anthropic. The company reportedly made two large investments, one for $300 million and another for $2 billion. Anthropic has raised $10 billion since its inception back in 2021, so Google and Amazon account for over half of that amount.

The regulatory agency is carrying out a related inquiry into Microsoft’s close partnership with OpenAI, which could represent a quasi-merger. It’s also looking into Microsoft hiring the core team behind Inflection AI, a rival to OpenAI. Last month, the CMA said it would be extending that last one into a full probe.