Brussels, BELGIUM – The EU should address potential competition concerns in generative-AI markets through existing ex-post competition law, rather than forcing AI into the Digital Markets Act’s (DMA) fixed ex-ante categories, according to research published today.
In ‘The Taxonomy Trap: AI Paradigm Shifts and the DMA’, Professor Thibault Schrepel argues that AI is a general-purpose technology, not a distinct service category. The DMA already applies when AI tools are integrated into designated ‘core platform services’ (CPS).
Schrepel warns, however, that extending the DMA’s fixed, service-based rules to generative AI at large would create legal contradictions and blind spots. It would also distort competition by subjecting firms competing in the same AI markets to unequal obligations, as those with significant market power in AI but no CPS designation would face no DMA obligations at all.
Nor would creating a standalone CPS category for generative AI solve the problem, the paper says. It would lock a fast-evolving technology into a rigid framework that would quickly become outdated and ultimately fail. The study finds that today’s generative-AI markets are highly dynamic, with no signs of mature lock-in scenarios for which the DMA was designed.
The report identifies three structural mismatches between the DMA and generative AI. First, the DMA assumes data flows are confined to a particular service, while AI operates dynamically across pretraining, fine-tuning, inference, and memory. Second, it assumes stable access points, while AI agents determine connections dynamically as they perform tasks. Third, the DMA’s self-preferencing rules address rankings of existing items, while generative systems create new content.
Given these fundamental mismatches, the study concludes that case-by-case enforcement under traditional competition law, including Article 102 TFEU, is the only viable approach. This would allow authorities to assess specific conduct and market effects as they emerge without locking AI into rigid categories.
The report was commissioned by the Computer & Communications Industry Association (CCIA Europe) to inform the ongoing policy debate in Brussels.
The following can be attributed to CCIA Europe’s AI Policy Lead, Boniface de Champris:
“The DMA already covers AI when it is integrated into designated core platform services. But generative AI is a general-purpose technology, not a separate service category that can be neatly fitted into the DMA’s rigid, static framework.”
“Potential competition concerns should be assessed case by case under traditional EU competition rules, without creating technical blind spots or subjecting competitors in the same AI markets to completely different rules.”
