Artificial intelligence could intensify anti-competitive behavior in digital markets by allowing algorithms to execute practices ranging from discriminatory pricing to market manipulation with limited human involvement, India’s top competition regulator has warned.
Ravneet Kaur, chairperson of the Competition Commission of India, said the rapid deployment of AI is increasing the speed at which digital markets operate and creating new questions for antitrust authorities, according to a Sept. 7 report by Rediff.com that was sourced from the Press Trust of India.
Speaking at a training program for law students at the India International University of Legal Education and Research in Goa, Kaur identified potential concerns including self-preferencing, tying arrangements, discriminatory pricing and manipulation of markets, according to the Rediff/PTI report.
The development of more autonomous, or “agentic,” AI systems presents an additional challenge because some commercial decisions may increasingly be carried out without direct human intervention, Kaur said, according to the report.
One scenario under consideration involves algorithms monitoring competitors’ prices and automatically responding by matching or undercutting them. Such capabilities illustrate how conduct that previously required deliberate human decisions could potentially be executed by automated systems, the report said.
Kaur said AI is simultaneously producing significant benefits as businesses adopt the technology in areas including health care, education, logistics and supply-chain management. The regulatory challenge is therefore to identify potentially harmful conduct without unnecessarily restricting innovation or legitimate corporate expansion, according to Rediff/PTI.
The CCI has already conducted a study examining the relationship between artificial intelligence and competition, according to the report. Kaur said the regulator uses such market studies to understand emerging technologies before deciding whether intervention is warranted, rather than immediately responding to every new technological development.
That approach is particularly significant in India because of the country’s expanding startup ecosystem. Competition law operates across economics, public policy, corporate governance, technology and traditional legal analysis, Kaur said, according to the report.
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The CCI’s responsibilities broadly cover antitrust enforcement, oversight of mergers and other corporate combinations, and competition advocacy. Its objective isn’t to prevent companies from becoming large, Kaur said. Instead, the regulator focuses on conduct in which companies misuse dominant market positions.
Read more: Is the Age of Purely Private-Sector AI Coming to an End?
“We are okay with enterprises becoming dominant,” Kaur said, as quoted by Rediff/PTI, adding that the commission takes a tougher position when dominance is abused.
That distinction reflects the evolution of India’s competition policy since the economic reforms that began in 1991. The country moved away from the framework associated with the Monopolies and Restrictive Trade Practices Act of 1969 toward a system intended to permit businesses to expand while policing exclusionary and exploitative behavior, according to the report.
Kaur said competitive markets are important to ensuring that corporate growth comes from merit and innovation rather than practices that restrict rivals. At the same time, she described the competition authority as having a role in India’s broader economic development and said regulation shouldn’t impede legitimate business growth, according to Rediff/PTI.
The comments underscore a growing challenge for competition authorities as increasingly autonomous AI systems enter commercial decision-making. For regulators such as the CCI, the task is no longer limited to examining how digital platforms exercise market power; it also involves assessing how algorithms may change the speed, scale and degree of automation with which potentially anti-competitive conduct can occur.
Kaur also urged businesses to emphasize compliance with competition rules as technologies and markets evolve, according to the Rediff/PTI report.
Source: Rediff/PTI
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