AGCOM Requests EU Intervention: Do Google AI Overview and AI Mode Violate the DSA?

Among the many functionalities that utilize artificial intelligence launched by Google in recent years, we find AI Overview and AI Mode. These are two AI features that have radically changed the way information is searched online, leading to a drastic decrease in visits for many sites.

In fact, artificial intelligence collects information from web pages and displays it directly to the user, without the user having to reach the source of the information itself.

AGCOM Requests EU Intervention

Last week, AGCOM announced the sending of a formal request to the European Commission for an assessment regarding AI Overview and AI Mode, also in accordance with the provisions of the Digital Services Act. This was initiated by a report to the Authority by the Italian Federation of Newspaper Publishers - FIEG.

This report, AGCOM states, would concern "a significant reduction in the visibility and availability of editorial content that, on the one hand, would endanger the economic sustainability of publishers and authors, particularly smaller and independent ones, and, on the other hand, would impact freedom of expression and information and the pluralism of sources."

It will now be up to the European Commission to assess the validity of the issue and, if necessary, initiate an investigation regarding a possible violation of the obligations under the DSA. On this matter, AGCOM has also announced the opening of a permanent table, with Google and other platforms, to evaluate the issue and the relationship between copyright and artificial intelligence.

Google's AI functions have, in fact, introduced the phenomenon of zero-click search in the online content search, with AI providing answers to the user by gathering information from third-party sources. Additionally, systems like AI Overview have often proven to be imprecise, with answers containing errors not present in the consulted sources.