The market dominance of Amazon’s Alexa, Apple’s Siri, and Alphabet’s Google Assistant has triggered concerns of potential anti-competitive practices, EU antitrust regulators announced on Wednesday, June 9.
The comments from the European Commission come after a year-long inquiry into voice assistants and other internet-connected devices and responses from more than 200 companies.
Similar inquiries in the past into sectors such as e-commerce, pharmaceuticals, financial services, and energy have led to cases against companies and hefty fines.
Alexa, Siri, and Google Assistant are the most popular voice-assistant devices in Europe, with the global market expected to double to 8.4 billion devices from 4.2 billion between 2020 and 2024, according to Statista.
“We saw indications that some practices that we know too well may lead to tipping and to the emergence of gatekeepers,” European Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager told reporters.
“And from the preliminary results published today, it appears that our concerns are shared by many players,” she said.
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