EU DMA turns to AI and cloud as regulators probe gatekeepers beyond app stores

Europe’s platform rulebook is moving into its next phase. According to a 28 April Reuters report, the European Commission now wants the Digital Markets Act to bear more directly on cloud services and AI. The first wave of DMA enforcement was largely associated with app stores, browser choice screens, and data portability. The next wave looks aimed at the deeper control layers that increasingly shape AI competition: operating-system access, virtual assistants, and cloud concentration.

The Commission’s starting point is that the DMA is already working in its current form. The law currently targets Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Booking.com, ByteDance, Meta, and Microsoft as gatekeepers. Regulators said the framework has made it easier for users to move data when switching services and devices, and improved interoperability opportunities for device makers. In its first DMA review, the Commission argued that the existing structure remains fit for purpose rather than in need of a redesign.

The real signal came in what happens next. Reuters reported that the Commission wants AI and cloud markets to become more fair and more contestable, and will examine whether some AI services should be designated as virtual assistant core platform services. It is also investigating whether Amazon and Microsoft should be labeled gatekeepers for cloud computing under the DMA, and whether the current legislation is strong enough to address anticompetitive conduct in that sector. Teresa Ribera said the DMA was designed to be future-proof and able to adapt to emerging challenges, explicitly naming AI and cloud.

This matters because the center of gravity in AI competition is shifting upward and downward at the same time. Upward, toward assistants and agent interfaces that mediate user access. Downward, toward the cloud infrastructure that determines cost, speed, and operational dependence. The Commission said it does not currently plan to change the gatekeeper criteria or expand social-network interoperability obligations, so this is not a wholesale rewrite. But it is a clear change in regulatory attention. For companies building AI in Europe, the question is no longer only whether their model is good enough. It is also whether access to platforms, system hooks, and cloud economics will remain open enough to compete.