British competition watchdog clears Microsoft in AI hirings

Sept. 4 (UPI) -- The British competition watchdog on Wednesday cleared Microsoft's hiring of several key members of Inflection AI, including its co-founder, saying it does not rise to a "relevant merger situation," under law.

The Competition and Markets Authority had investigated Microsoft for hiring away top executives from the artificial intelligence company. Inflection AI's co-founder Mustafa Suleyman was hired to become executive vice president and CEO of Microsoft AI.

The CMA initially said the hiring of Suleyman and other influential executives could amount to a merger under British law and lessen competition. On Wednesday, however, the authority backed away from that assumption and cleared the U.S. tech giant.

"The CMA found that the transaction does not give rise to a realistic prospect of an [substantial lessening of competition] as a result of horizontal unilateral effects arising from the loss of competition in the development and supply of consumer chatbots," the CMA said in a statement.

The CMA, though, is not finished with Microsoft. The authority is still investigating Microsoft's partnership with leading AI developer OpenAI. The CMA is also investigating a similar matchup of Amazon and the AI firm Anthropic over similar merger concerns.

The Federal Trade Commission is conducting its own investigation into Microsoft and Inflection AI. Microsoft and Amazon have both argued that their AI hiring does not constitute mergers with the companies they are hiring from.