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Policy brief 17 · Chatbots

Structural Remedies for Chatbot Markets

Your assistant should answer to you, not to whoever pays for placement.

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Google paid Apple an estimated $20 billion in 2022 to remain the default search engine on Apple devices, and a federal court found Google's exclusive default deals unlawful.1 The same playbook is reaching AI assistants, which now hold users' memories and carry ads. Congress should let users take their assistant's memory with them, wall off conversations from advertising, keep distribution open, and allow structural separation when nothing less works.

The Problem

Defaults decide markets. In 2021, Google spent $26.3 billion paying partners for default placement, four times its other search costs combined, research and development included.1 Assistants are the new defaults: Apple will base its next generation of AI models, including a more personal Siri, on Google's Gemini.2

An assistant is becoming the place where Americans ask, plan, and buy. The judge in the Google case found that AI companies aim to build a "super assistant" that can complete a purchase for its user.3 Whoever controls an assistant's placement, memory, and commercial incentives shapes which options a person ever sees. Three pressure points are already visible:

  1. Defaults are for sale. Google pays Samsung monthly sums, per-device bounties, and a share of Gemini's ad revenue, on condition that a long press of the phone's side key opens Gemini by default.3
  2. The adviser sells ads. OpenAI began testing ads in ChatGPT in February 2026,4 chosen "based on your current conversation."5 Its promise that ads will not sway answers is a company pledge; no statute requires it.
  3. Your history stays behind. Google's Gemini can now draw on a user's Gmail, Photos, YouTube, and Search history, connected "in a single tap."6 No federal law lets that user carry what an assistant has learned to a rival.

Why legislation: The Justice Department sued Google over search in October 2020; final judgment came in December 2025, and both sides have appealed.7 In the remedies opinion, the judge wrote that "the emergence of GenAI changed the course of this case."3 Case-by-case enforcement remains essential, but it arrives after markets tip. A unanimous FTC also authorized a 2025 staff report warning that Big Tech's AI partnerships can raise AI developers' switching costs.8 No federal law gives users a right to move an assistant's memory, and none specifically bars a dominant assistant from steering them to its owner's products. An assistant that knows a person this well should work for that person.

The Solution

A four-step staircase: each step stands alone, and each step up adds structural protection. Steps 1 and 2 cover consumer assistants above 10 million monthly U.S. users; Steps 3 and 4 reach only firms designated, after a reviewable finding, as holding durable power over a critical distribution or data bottleneck. Size alone triggers nothing. Social media antitrust and AI infrastructure are addressed separately; this brief covers the assistant.

Step 1 — Let users take their assistant with them. Require standardized export of conversations, user-approved memories, preferences, and connection permissions, in the kind of machine-readable format California already requires for personal data.9 Let users pick a rival as their default assistant and revoke the old provider's access. Data moves; a model's personality does not.

Step 2 — Wall off the conversation. Bar using private conversations to favor affiliated sellers or advertisers without separate consent and clear disclosure, and require auditable controls between the assistant and any ad or shopping business. That turns OpenAI's pledge that "ads do not influence the answers" into a rule for everyone.5

Step 3 — Keep the doors open. Designated gatekeepers must give rival assistants documented, secure access on equal terms and may not sign exclusive default deals or ones lasting longer than a year, the limits the Google judgment imposes on Gemini deals.10 Enforcers review acquisitions and contracts that would rebuild an adjudicated barrier; genuinely necessary security limits survive independent review.

Step 4 — Separate the conflict when nothing else works. After a court finds a defined violation and that lesser remedies have failed, it may order functional separation, limits on common control, or divestiture of the conflicting business, with a specified transition. The bar is high by design: the Google court declined to order Chrome sold.3

Where to start: Step 1 is the floor; it asks only that users own their history. Step 3 is the heart of the proposal.

Administration and enforcement: The FTC and DOJ designate gatekeepers and enforce, subject to judicial review. Portability rules issue within 12 months, with compliance a year later; structural orders carry transition schedules, independent monitors, and funding for technical staff.

Risks and Mitigations

  • Integration has value: Built-in assistants can be faster, more private, and easier to use. Require proof of specific competitive harm and prefer the least disruptive fix; some benefits of integration may still be lost.
  • Privacy: Portability and open interfaces can leak intimate data. Transfers move only user-authorized records through certified interfaces, and recipients cannot widen permissions; the attack surface still grows.
  • Due process: Laws aimed at named companies invite constitutional challenge. Use general standards, notice, a factual record, and judicial review, so that courts rather than Congress choose any breakup.

Similar Bills

Fit measures similarity to this proposal's mechanisms: High = direct precedent; Partial = useful component with material differences; Related = adjacent approach.

Federal

Proposal or bill Relevant provisions and fit Fit
S. 4746 — American Innovation and Choice Online Act
Grassley (R-IA), Klobuchar (D-MN), Durbin (D-IL), Hawley (R-MO), Whitehouse (D-RI), Booker (D-NJ)
Referred to committee · June 10, 2026		 §3 bars "systemically important platforms" from self-preferencing, denying rivals equal access to platform features, tying, misusing business users' data, and impeding users from changing defaults. Direct precedent for Step 3; conduct rules only, limited to firms with at least $175 billion in revenue and very large U.S. user bases. High
S. 1634 — ACCESS Act of 2025
Warner (D-VA), Hawley (R-MO), Blumenthal (D-CT)
Referred to committee · May 7, 2025		 §§3–5 require portability, interoperability, and delegation to user-authorized agents. Direct model for Step 1; covers communications platforms above 100 million U.S. users, not assistants' memory. High
H.R. 3825 — Ending Platform Monopolies Act
Jayapal (D-WA), Gooden (R-TX), Cicilline (D-RI), Buck (R-CO), Nadler (D-NY)
Ordered reported · June 24, 2021 · Expired with the 117th Congress		 Would bar covered platforms from owning lines of business that create a conflict of interest. Separation model for Step 4; mandates separation by statute rather than after a court finding, and predates AI assistants. Partial

State

Proposal or bill Relevant provisions and fit Fit
New York — S. 335, Twenty-First Century Anti-Trust Act
Sen. Gianaris
Passed Senate · May 6, 2026 · In Assembly committee		 Would add monopolization, monopsonization, and abuse-of-dominance standards to state law. Broad authority behind Steps 3–4; no assistant-specific duties. Partial
California — AB 1776
Presented to governor · Sept. 10, 2026 · No action recorded as of Sept. 23, 2026		 Would make single-firm monopolization and monopsonization unlawful under a new Business and Professions Code §16731, enforceable only by the attorney general or district attorneys. Enforcement foundation for Step 3; no portability or separation duties. Partial
California — CCPA, Civil Code §1798.130
In force (CCPA of 2018, as amended)		 Requires businesses to provide consumers' personal information in a structured, machine-readable format that can be sent to another entity without hindrance. Component precedent for Step 1; no competing-assistant interfaces or structural remedies. Partial

What this adds: The federal bills supply conduct rules for the largest platforms and portability for social networks; none addresses the assistant itself. This proposal adds memory portability and default choice for assistants, a legal wall between conversations and advertising, one-year limits on default deals like those in the Google judgment, and court-ordered separation as a last resort. The state rows supply general competition authority and portability; none is chatbot-specific.

Notes

  1. United States v. Google LLC, No. 1:20-cv-03010, Doc. 1033 (D.D.C. Aug. 5, 2024) (memorandum opinion on liability), Findings of Fact ¶ 299 ($20 billion to Apple in 2022, worldwide queries) and Conclusions of Law ($26.3 billion in 2021 traffic acquisition costs, "four times more than the company's other search-related costs combined, including research and development"). ↩ ↩2

  2. Google, "Joint statement from Google and Apple," January 12, 2026: "the next generation of Apple Foundation Models will be based on Google's Gemini models." ↩

  3. United States v. Google LLC, No. 1:20-cv-03010, Doc. 1436 (D.D.C. Sept. 2, 2025) (memorandum opinion on remedies), pp. 1–4 and Findings of Fact ¶¶ 22, 81–88. Payment amounts are redacted in the public opinion. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4

  4. Sarah Perez, "ChatGPT rolls out ads," TechCrunch, February 9, 2026. Testing covers U.S. users of the Free and Go tiers. ↩

  5. OpenAI, "Our approach to advertising and expanding access to ChatGPT," January 16, 2026, listing "answer independence" among its ad principles. ↩ ↩2

  6. Josh Woodward, "Gemini introduces Personal Intelligence," Google, January 14, 2026. Opt-in beta for U.S. subscribers at launch. ↩

  7. United States v. Google LLC, No. 1:20-cv-03010 (D.D.C., filed Oct. 20, 2020): Final Judgment, Doc. 1462 (Dec. 5, 2025); notices of appeal by Google (Jan. 16, 2026) and the United States (Feb. 3, 2026). ↩

  8. Federal Trade Commission, "FTC Issues Staff Report on AI Partnerships & Investments Study," January 17, 2025. The Commission voted 5-0 to allow staff to issue the report, which covers cloud providers' partnerships with OpenAI and Anthropic. ↩

  9. Cal. Civ. Code § 1798.130(a)(3)(B)(iii) (California Consumer Privacy Act): "a structured, commonly used, machine-readable format." ↩

  10. United States v. Google LLC, No. 1:20-cv-03010, Doc. 1462 (D.D.C. Dec. 5, 2025) (final judgment), § III.K–M: default agreements for Google Search and Google's generative AI products must end within one year, and Apple and browser developers must remain free to promote rival products. ↩