Is Big Tech's grip on global influence already unbreakable? | Tech Radar

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Is Big Tech's grip on global influence already unbreakable?

Can any platform realistically challenge Big Tech's dominance?

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The European Commission has just moved to classify Amazon's and Microsoft's cloud businesses, AWS and Microsoft Azure, as "gatekeepers" under the Digital Markets Act. The designation is reserved for platforms with significant market power, even though neither meet the usual size thresholds for that label.

Regulators pointed instead to entrenched market positions, steep switching costs, and the growing weight of AI tools and partnerships in locking customers in.

This is not only a cloud computing issue. It reflects a broader shift in how the world’s largest technology companies exert influence across digital life. Their power increasingly comes not just from attracting large audiences, but from controlling the infrastructure, platforms and distribution systems on which those audiences and other businesses depend.

The same pattern is visible across the media landscape. You Tube, Google, Instagram, Facebook and Amazon rank among the most influential companies across mainstream and social media. Their lead is not simply a product of popularity. It is reinforced by their control of the channels through which information is created, distributed and discovered.

There's a clear divide between this top tier and everyone else, and right now nothing sits in between. The handful of brands that come closest are themselves long-established, globally dominant companies, not new entrants nearing a breakthrough, and even they trail well behind.

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This suggests the market is characterized less by active competition and more by a settled hierarchy of platforms. That line separates an established class of technology platforms from the rest of the market, including some of the world's other largest companies.

Perplexity AI is the one worth watching. Its sentiment across social and traditional media already beats Google, Tik Tok, and Apple, carried by a chief executive who's a near-constant presence in debates about AI and search. However, its influence remains concentrated within specialist and tech communities rather than broader mainstream media.

Keep growing at this pace, and assuming other media issues don't change opinion, it could close much of the gap within a couple years. For now, every one of these platforms sits a long way outside the established top tier.

Mc Kinsey found that Generative AI was the primary source of insight for 44% of its users last year. That shifts even more influence to the companies that either build the AI systems shaping discovery, or supply the content those systems draw on.

A similar dynamic is emerging beyond Big Tech. Among leading brands, those appearing most consistently in AI-generated answers aren't necessarily those dominating current media coverage, but those most deeply embedded in AI training data.

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Once a brand becomes part of an AI model's underlying knowledge, visibility starts to reinforce itself. Discovery increasingly favors what AI already knows, making it progressively harder for challengers to break through.

Regulatory pressure hasn't opened much of a door either, at least not yet: Apple and Meta have faced significant Digital Markets Act penalties, and several of the biggest platforms that carry below-average sentiment are weighed down by antitrust cases.

Those moves acknowledge how concentrated digital power has become, but they remain reactive rather than having any real redistribution of influence. The influence rankings barely shift because the underlying advantages - audience scale, data, ecosystems and AI integration - remain intact.

The evidence points to a bigger shift than simply market concentration. The platforms at the top aren't just attracting the largest audiences; they're increasingly shaping the infrastructure through which digital services are built and discovered.

AWS and Azure underpin huge parts of the internet. Google, You Tube and Chat GPT increasingly influence how information is surfaced. Apple's and Google's mobile ecosystems determine distribution.

These layers of infrastructure create reinforcing advantages across cloud, search, and device ecosystems. Those advantages reinforce one another in ways that are difficult for standalone competitors - including Reddit, Perplexity AI, Bluesky, Snapchat, and Quora - to replicate.

That's why there are so few credible alternatives today. Perplexity may continue closing the gap in AI search, and regulators may succeed in limiting some anti-competitive behavior. But neither addresses the broader reality that influence has become cumulative across multiple parts of the technology stack.

Until that changes, the question isn't whether Big Tech faces competition, it clearly does. It's whether any competitor can challenge the system of advantages that keeps the current leaders at the top.

This article was produced as part of Tech Radar Pro Perspectives, our channel to feature the best and brightest minds in the technology industry today.

The views expressed here are those of the author and are not necessarily those of Tech Radar Pro or Future plc. If you are interested in contributing find out more here: https://www.techradar.com/pro/perspectives-how-to-submit

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