The US Justice Department is probing whether Alphabet Inc's Google violated antitrust law with an agreement to use the artificial intelligence technology of a popular chatbot maker, according to people with knowledge of the matter.
Antitrust enforcers have recently told Google they’re examining whether it structured an agreement with the company known as Character.AI to avoid formal government merger scrutiny, said the people, who asked not to be identified discussing the confidential probe. In a deal with Google last year, the founders of the chatbot maker joined the search firm, which also got a non-exclusive license to use their venture’s technology.
