AI & Market Power – Findings from Fellows

In November 2024, the European AI & Society Fund backed eight Global AI & Market Power Fellowship teams, made up of 14 individuals, to spearhead investigations into market power dynamics in the AI ecosystem. 

The Fellows investigated how large US technology firms dominate digital infrastructures, increasing dependencies by AI startups, SMEs and governments on their services. Their research demonstrates that concentration in AI markets is not a future risk, but a deepening bind with every investment round, cloud credit programme, and model-infrastructure bundle. 

It’s clear that the same three US companies – Microsoft, Amazon and Google – control the cloud layer, dominate model distribution, shape startup ecosystems through venture investment, and are extending their reach into adjacent sectors from energy to biology to defence. 

And the window for intervention is narrowing: lock-in mechanisms compound over time, the evidence base needed to act is actively shrinking, and “sovereign AI” initiatives risk channelling public money into structures that entrench rather than challenge existing market power. This requires action from competition authorities and heads of state alike, but the nature of that action differs.

Artificial Intelligence should benefit everyone, not just the powerful few. But we live in a world where the direction of AI has been captured by a small number of tech giants, set on amassing vast wealth and entrenching their power. Trapped in their narrow vision for the future, we are failing to harness the potential of AI technologies to build the fair, democratic and sustainable societies we all want to live in.

Read the full report on the AI & Market Power Fellows and their findings below. And if you’re a funder interested in Fellowships, here are some lessons we learnt from this AI and Market Power programme.