Brazil’s competition regulator has widened a long-running case against Google into a formal administrative proceeding, putting the company’s generative AI features under scrutiny for the first time in a Latin American antitrust probe. The move, approved unanimously by CADE on 23 April, marks a sharp turn from the agency’s decision in December 2024 to close the matter and reflects a broader Brazilian willingness to examine how artificial intelligence may reinforce the power of large technology groups. CADE has already opened separate inquiries into AI-related conduct by other Big Tech firms, including Meta’s WhatsApp terms and the competition effects of AI technologies more generally. According to CADE’s own announcements, those cases are part of an expanding effort to test how new AI tools affect market access and rivalry.

The revived Google case dates back to 2018, when CADE began looking at the search giant’s use of journalistic material in search results and news features. What makes the latest phase different is that the regulator is now explicitly considering AI-generated summaries and other generative features that draw on crawled news content. That shift matters because it places AI-mediated information retrieval at the centre of a dominance case, rather than treating the issue as a dispute only about snippets and traffic diversion. In 2024, CADE had already launched procedures examining whether Google, Amazon and Microsoft should have disclosed acquisitions involving AI startups, signalling that the authority was increasingly focused on the competitive risks of AI infrastructure and access.

Interim CADE chief Diogo Thomson de Andrade was central to the decision to reopen the matter, according to the account of the tribunal’s vote, after the agency’s general superintendence had previously recommended shelving it for lack of evidence. The case now moves into a stage that allows evidence collection, subpoenas and, eventually, remedies or penalties if misconduct is found. That process can take years, which means any final ruling is likely to arrive well after Brazil’s next presidential election. In other words, CADE has not ruled on the merits yet, but it has ensured the question will be examined in depth.

Google called the decision a misunderstanding of how its products operate and said it would keep engaging with the authority. Brazilian publishers, by contrast, have pressed for a framework that would force compensation agreements similar to Australia’s news bargaining code. The wider regulatory backdrop suggests CADE is not alone: it has already signalled interest in how AI systems interact with market power, and its separate inquiry into AI’s competitive effects began in February 2026. For Alphabet, the significance is not only that Brazil is keeping the old case alive, but that it is now testing whether the company’s dominance in search could be extended into the AI layer that sits on top of it.

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Source: Noah Wire Services