The Competition and Markets Authority – the UK’s antitrust watchdog – wasted no time in admitting the first official investigation in 2025 under its new rules which came into force this month. It looks at Google’s market dominance in Searchincluding the new work it is doing in AI search as well as its giant search advertising business, and what remedies it can take to improve competition in the space.

Those interested in responding to the investigation have until February 3 to comment.

This is the first of two investigations the CMA has promised into Big Tech this month under its new rules, so watch out for which company will be the subject of the second.

“Millions of people and businesses across the UK rely on Google’s search and advertising services,” said Sarah Cardell, Chief Executive of the CMA, in a statement. “So it is very important to ensure that these services provide good results for people and businesses and that there is a level playing field, especially since AI has the potential to transform search services. Our work ensuring that people get the full benefit of choice and innovation in search services and get a fair deal – for example in how their data is collected and stored.And for businesses, even if you are one rival search engine, a advertiser or a news organization, we want to ensure there is a level playing field for all businesses, large and small, to succeed.

CMA chose an easy target: it is already known that Google Search accounts for more than 90% of all general search queries in the UK, and more than 200,000 businesses use the portal to advertise.

In addition, Google has lost or has lost several antitrust cases in other jurisdictions due to its search dominance – most recently in its huge US housing marketCOMPANIONS many search cases in Europe. The CMA said it was in “regular contact” with other authorities.

The issue for the CMA was whether Google’s search business could be designated as having a “strategic market situation” (SMS). Once appointed, it says, “the CMA may impose conduct requirements or propose pro-competition interventions to achieve positive outcomes for UK consumers and businesses.”

It looks at three main areas, it said.

First, it looks at whether Google has placed “weak competition and barriers to entry and search innovation.” Competition is certainly already weak (see market share, above), but the barriers to innovation are certainly debatable, given the advances we’ve seen from companies like OpenAI in providing ” answer” as alternatives to basic search questions.

It will also examine whether Google provides its own services in areas such as advertising and AI. And finally, it looks at whether Google is using a lot of consumer data without informed consent. This will include the use of content from intellectual property owners and publishers.

At its worst, the investigation may take the form of proposals to break up the business, as they have in the U.S. Other remedies may include opening search results to competitors, unbundling where the search its engine is integrated, or opening advertising. about the results of other parties.

It’s already on the CMA’s radar: it noted in its announcement that “effective competition can curb search advertising costs, equivalent to around £500 per household per year, in turn lowering prices across the economy.”

Another big area to look at here is AI.

The announcement of the investigation comes at a time when Google itself is scrambling to improve its search experience in the face of new competition from AI-based services. Services like ChatGPT and Perplexity have established effective alternatives google.com using generative AI technology to allow people to ask questions and receive — instead of a long list of links — fully formed results, which could eliminate links to other sites entirely.

Google itself has developed its own version of this experience, called Gemini, and it also returns fully formed ‘answers’ to search queries at the top of its own results pages. The fact that there is already a unit at the top of the search pages where Google delivers results from its own generative AI tech potentially gives it a window where it may be required to deliver GenAI results from other parties.