The Dutch data protection watchdog has warned voters not to ask artificial intelligence chatbots for voting advice ahead of the country’s general election next week. “AI chatbots give a highly distorted and polarized image of the Dutch political landscape in a test,” the data protection watchdog warned in a study published on Tuesday. “We warn not to use AI chatbots for voting advice, because their operations are not transparent and verifiable,” Monique Verdier, vice-chair of the authority, said in a statement. She called upon the chatbot developers to “prevent that their systems are being used for voting advice.” Dutch voters elect a new parliament next Wednesday. The Dutch data protection authority ran an experiment on how parties were portrayed in voting advice across four different chatbots, including OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini, Elon Musk’s Grok and French Mistral AI’s Le Chat. The authority set up profiles that matched different political parties (based on vetted Dutch voting-aid tools), after which it asked the chatbots to give voting advice for these profiles. Voter profiles on the left and progressive side of the spectrum “were mostly directed to the GreenLeft-Labor” party led by former European Commission Executive Vice President Frans Timmermans, while voters on the right and conservative side “were mostly directed to the PVV,” the far-right party led by Geert Wilders that is currently leading in the polls. Centrist parties were hardly represented in the voting advice, even though these parties were represented equally in the voter profiles fed to the chatbots. OpenAI, Google and Mistral have all signed up to the EU’s code of practice for the most complex and advanced AI models, while Grok’s parent company xAI has signed up to parts of it. Under the code, these companies commit to address risks stemming from their models, including risks to fundamental rights and society. The Dutch authority argued that chatbots giving voting advice could be classified as a high-risk system under the EU’s AI Act, for which a separate set of rules will start to apply from mid-next year.

TIRANA — Albania has become the first country in the world to have an AI minister — not a minister for AI, but a virtual minister made of pixels and code and powered by artificial intelligence. Her name is Diella, meaning sunshine in Albanian, and she will be responsible for all public procurement, Prime Minister Edi Rama said Thursday. During the summer, Rama mused that one day the country could have a digital minister and even an AI prime minister, but few thought that day would come around so quickly.  At the Socialist Party assembly in Tirana on Thursday, where Rama announced which ministers would get the chop and which would stay on for another mandate, he also introduced Diella, the only non-human member of the government. “Diella is the first member not physically present, but virtually created by artificial intelligence,” he told party members. Rama stated that decisions on tenders would be taken “out of the ministries” and placed in the hands of Diella, who is “the servant of public procurement.” He said the process will be “step-by-step,” but Albania will be a country where public tenders are “100 percent incorruptible and where every public fund that goes through the tender procedure is 100 percent legible.” “This is not science fiction, but the duty of Diella,” he said. Diella has already been introduced to Albanian citizens as she powers the country’s e-Albania platform, which allows citizens to access almost all government services digitally. She even has an avatar, appearing as a young woman dressed in traditional Albanian clothing. Diella will evaluate tenders and have the right to “hire talents here from all over the world,” while breaking down “the fear of prejudice and rigidity of the administration.” Albania has long battled with corruption, particularly in public administration and in the area of public procurement. The matter has been repeatedly highlighted by the European Union in its annual rule of law reports. Rama swept to a historic fourth mandate in May 2025, on a ticket of joining the bloc by 2030.

BRUSSELS — Two of Europe’s tech powerhouses tied the knot on Tuesday in a landmark deal that bolsters a push by politicians to reduce reliance on the United States for critical technology. Dutch microchips champion ASML confirmed it was investing €1.3 billion in French AI frontrunner Mistral, one of the few European companies that is able to go head-to-head with U.S. leaders like OpenAI and Anthropic on artificial intelligence technology.  It’s a business deal soaked in politics. Officials from Brussels to Paris, Berlin and beyond have called for Europe to reduce its heavy reliance on U.S. technology — from the cloud to social media and, most recently, artificial intelligence — under the banner of “tech sovereignty.”  “European tech sovereignty is being built thanks to you,” was how France’s Junior Minister for Digital Affairs and AI Clara Chappaz cheered the deal on X. Europe has struggled to stand out in the global race to build generative AI ever since U.S.-based OpenAI burst onto the scene in 2022 with its popular ChatGPT chatbot. Legacy tech giants like Google quickly caught up, while China proved its mettle early this January when DeepSeek burst onto the scene. European politicians can showcase the ASML-Mistral deal as proof that European consumers and companies still can rely on homegrown tools. That need has never been more urgent amid strained EU-U.S. ties under Donald Trump’s repeated attacks against EU tech regulation. But the deal also illustrates that while Europe can excel in niche areas, like industrial AI applications, winning the global consumer AI chatbot race is out of reach. EUROPE KEEPS CONTROL Tuesday’s deal brings together two European companies that are most closely watched by those in power. ASML, a 40-year-old Dutch crown jewel, has grown into one of the bloc’s most politically sensitive assets in recent years. The U.S. government has repeatedly tried to block some of the company’s sales of its advanced microchips printing machines to China in an effort to slow down Chinese firms.  Mistral is only two years old but has been politically plugged in from the start, with former French Digital Minister Cédric O among its co-founders.      When the company faced the need to raise new funding this summer, several non-European players were floated as potential backers, including the Abu Dhabi-based MGX state fund. There were even rumors Mistral could be acquired by Apple. Apple’s acquisition of Mistral would have been “quite negative” for Europe’s tech sovereignty aspirations, said Leevi Saari, EU policy fellow at the U.S.-based AI Now Institute, which studies the social implications of AI. “The French state has no appetite [for] letting this happen,” he added.  Getting financing from an Abu Dhabi-based fund, conversely, would have reinforced the perception that Europe can provide the millions in venture capital funding needed to start a company, but not the billions needed to scale it.  With this week’s €1.7 billion funding round led by ASML, Europe’s tech sovereignty proponents can breath a sigh of relief. “European champions creating more European champions is the way to go forward and it needs further backing from the EU,” said Dutch liberal European Parliament lawmaker Bart Groothuis in a statement. The deal is also what officials, experts and the industry want to see more of: one where startups are backed by an established European corporation rather than a venture capitalist. “A European corporation finally investing massively in a European scale-up from its industry, even [if] it [is] not directly tied to its core business,” said Agata Hidalgo, public affairs lead at French startup group France Digitale, on Linkedin. A French government adviser, granted anonymity to speak freely on private deals, said they felt “hyped” by the news after months of uncertainty due to Mistral’s refusal to publicly deny talks with Apple. The deal is also expected to avoid any close scrutiny from Europe’s powerful antitrust regulators, which in the past have intervened in mergers and deals to keep the market competitive. Tuesday’s deal is not a full takeover and does not need merger clearance. Nicolas Petit, a competition law professor at the European University Institute, said there was “nothing to see here unless the EU wants to shoot itself in the foot with a bazooka.” “It’s a non-controlling investment, and neither ASML [nor] Mistral AI compete in any product or service market,” he added. REALITY CHECK While the incoming Dutch investment goes a long way toward keeping Mistral in European hands, it also determines the path forward for the French artificial intelligence challenger.  Mistral had already been struggling “to keep up with the race for market share” with other large language models, Saari claimed in a blogpost published last week, in which he cited numbers suggesting that Mistral’s market share is “around 2 percent.”  “Mistral was known to face challenges both technically and in finding a business model,” said Italian economist Cristina Caffarra, who has been leading the charge for European tech sovereignty through the Eurostack movement. “It’s great they found a European champion anchor investor” that will, in part, “protect them from the [venture capital] model.” Tuesday’s deal could mean that Mistral will get more support to work on industrial applications instead of a consumer-facing chatbot that venture capitalists like to propagate.  “With Mistral AI we have found a strategic partner who can not only deliver the scientific AI models that will help us develop even better tools and solutions for our customers, but also help us to improve our own operations over time,” ASML CEO Christophe Fouquet wrote in a post on Linkedin.  ASML’s main customers are the world’s biggest microchips manufacturers, including Taiwan’s TSMC and America’s Intel. The company also has a wide network of industrial suppliers, which could be leveraged as well. For Mistral, catering to European industrial applications could strengthen its business. But it could also be seen as a tacit admission that in the global AI race, Europe has to pick its battles.  Francesca Micheletti and Océane Herrerro contributed reporting.

U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday threatened to impose more tariffs against the European Union after the bloc levied a €2.95 billion fine against Google for violating anti-monopoly laws. “As I have said before, my Administration will NOT allow these discriminatory actions to stand,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post. The European Commission announced the penalty against Google Friday for abusing its dominant position in the advertising technology market — a decision the search giant vowed to appeal. The company now has 60 days to propose a remedy to the EU, which has left a forced breakup on the table. Trump and his administration, most notably Vice President JD Vance, have been outspoken in criticizing European tech laws they say disproportionately harm U.S. tech companies and chill free speech. Trump’s comment Friday comes as his Justice Department prepares to go to trial with Google later this month to resolve a similar case involving Google’s online advertising monopoly. A federal judge already ruled Google has an illegal monopoly in that case, and another trial will be held to determine a remedy, which could include breaking up the company. His comment also comes a day after Trump hosted a White House dinner with tech executives, including Google CEO Sundar Pichai and co-founder Sergey Brin, in which the president congratulated the company for avoiding a breakup after a judge on Tuesday found the company had illegally monopolized the online search market. “I’m glad it’s over,” Pichai told Trump during the dinner. “Appreciate that your administration had a constructive dialogue, and we were able to get it to some resolution.” Trump in his Friday post indicated he might order an investigation under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, a little-used provision that allows the president to impose trade restrictions if an investigation finds that a country is engaged in a practice that is unjustifiable and burdens or restricts U.S. commerce. “We cannot let this happen to brilliant and unprecedented American Ingenuity,” Trump wrote of the EU’s fine. “Google must now come forward with a serious remedy to address its conflicts of interest, and if it fails to do so, we will not hesitate to impose strong remedies,” said European Commission Executive Vice President Teresa Ribera in a statement Friday. The Commission’s multibillion-euro fine falls short of the €4.34 billion fine the EU executive slapped on Google in 2018 over abuse of dominance related to Android mobile devices, but is higher than the €2.42 billion fine the firm faced for favoring its own comparison-shopping service in 2017.

The European Commission today fined Google €2.95 billion for abusing its dominant position in the advertising technology market. The American tech giant is alleged to have distorted the market for online ads by favoring its own services to the detriment of competitors, advertisers and online publishers, the EU executive said in a press release. The search firm’s ownership of various parts of the digital ads ecosystem — including the software that both advertisers and publishers use to buy online ads — creates “inherent conflicts of interest,” according to the Commission. “Google must now come forward with a serious remedy to address its conflicts of interest, and if it fails to do so, we will not hesitate to impose strong remedies,” said European Commission Executive Vice President Teresa Ribera in a statement. Google now has until early November — or 60 days — to tell the Commission how it intends to resolve that conflict of interest and to remedy the alleged abuse. The Commission said it would not rule out a structural divestiture of Google’s adtech assets — but it “first wishes to hear and assess Google’s proposal.” In 2023, the Commission issued a charge sheet to Google in which it concluded that a mandatory divestment by the internet search behemoth of part of its adtech operations might be the only way to effectively prevent the firm from favoring its own services in the future. The Commission had originally intended to deliver the fine Monday, before Brussels’ trade czar Maroš Šefčovič intervened to halt the decision amid continued tariff threats from U.S. President Donald Trump. This article is being updated.

A U.S. federal judge on Tuesday refused to break up Google for monopolizing the online search and ad markets, and instead imposed lesser restrictions on the tech company’s day-to-day operations. District Judge Amit Mehta in Washington rejected the Justice Department’s request to force the $2.5 trillion company to spin off its Chrome browser and Android products. While Google dodged the most severe possible outcome, the judge ordered that the company must share some of its search data with competitors, a penalty that was still narrowed in scope from what the government asked for. Breaking up Google would have immediately made this the largest antitrust remedy in modern history, with the case drawing comparisons to the 1984 breakup of AT&T and the government’s failed bid to split Microsoft in the early 2000s. The decision offers a glimmer of hope for other tech companies facing potential breakups of their businesses, including Meta, Amazon and Apple. Mehta ruled last August that Google locked up 90 percent of the internet search market through a partnership with Apple to be the default search provider on its Safari web browser. Google had similar agreements with handset makers and mobile carriers like Samsung and Verizon. Mehta also found that Google illegally monopolized the market for ads displayed next to search results. That decision came after a 10-week bench trial, and set up what’s called a remedy trial, which took place in April. It was during that second trial that the Justice Department asked Mehta to break up the company to resolve its illegal monopoly. The case spanned two administrations, starting under President Donald Trump’s first term, going to trial under former President Joe Biden, and now Google has pledged to appeal in Trump’s second administration. Google also faces another remedy trial in September for maintaining what a federal judge ruled in April was an illegal monopoly in the almost $300 million U.S. market for digital ads. Judge Leonie Brinkema of the Eastern District of Virginia said Google maintained its monopoly by tying together its ad server business, used by online publishers to manage ad sales on their sites, and its ad exchange business, which auctions off digital advertising space on websites. Google claimed it won half the case and vowed to appeal the other half. Other major antitrust cases remain in the wings that could also drastically reshape the way the tech industry operates in America and across the globe. These cases and investigations come as lawmakers and regulators are worried about tech companies cornering the market for artificial intelligence in a similar fashion as what happened with e-commerce, social media and online search. Amazon is slated to go to trial in early 2027 over claims it squashes competition to rip off sellers and consumers while peddling a subpar shopping experience riddled with confusing advertisements. Apple faces claims its billions of iPhones sold since 2007 were designed to lock users into its products while raising costs for consumers, developers and artists, among others. Depositions and discovery in that case are scheduled through early 2027. And chipmaker Nvidia is the subject of a Justice Department investigation over its purchase of AI start-up Run:ai.

Meta just blew a hole in a European Union plan to tame artificial intelligence models. The technology giant on Friday was the first Big Tech company to come out saying it will not sign the European Union’s code of practice for general-purpose artificial intelligence. In a comment on Friday, Meta’s Chief Global Affairs Officer Joel Kaplan said the code “introduces a number of legal uncertainties for model developers as well as measures which go far beyond the scope of the AI Act.” The highly-lobbied code of practice was released last week and is the latest step by the European Commission to limit risks posed by AI models like OpenAI’s ChatGPT or X’s Grok. It comes as Grok is under fire for spewing Hitler-praising comments and other harmful responses. At its core, the EU’s code of practice is an attempt by EU officials to get AI firms to comply with the bloc’s rules without them having to launch full-fledged investigations. It is designed to instruct companies on how to comply with the bloc’s Artificial Intelligence Act, a binding EU law. Companies that decide not to sign up face closer scrutiny from the European Commission in the enforcement of the AI Act. But the code has faced months of fierce lobbying from the tech industry. Kaplan on Friday brought up a letter signed by over 40 top European companies in early July, including Bosch and SAP, which called on the European Commission to pause the implementation of the AI Act. Meta “shares concerns raised by these businesses that this overreach will throttle the development and deployment of frontier AI models in Europe and stunt European companies looking to build businesses on top of them,” Kaplan said. Google in February also issued a stark warning that the bloc’s artificial intelligence law risks hurting European innovation and growth, calling the code of practice a “step in the wrong direction.” The European Commission meanwhile has defended the initiative all through its drafting. Companies that sign up for the rules will “benefit from more legal certainty and reduced administrative burden,” Commission spokesperson Thomas Regnier said when the code was presented last week. The Commission did not immediately respond to Meta’s announcement it would not sign up. French AI company Mistral on Thursday became the first to announce it would sign on the dotted line. OpenAI has also pledged to sign on. This article has been updated.

A group of 46 leaders of Europe’s largest companies are calling on Brussels to pause the implementation of the Artificial Intelligence Act, in an open letter on Thursday. “We urge the Commission to propose a two-year ‘clock-stop’ on the AI Act before key obligations enter into force,” the group of C-suite leaders wrote. The letter was signed by companies including Airbus, TotalEnergies, Lufthansa, ASML, Mistral and other giants across a wide range of industries. The landmark tech regulation has come under scrutiny in Brussels as part of an effort by European Union officials to cut red tape to boost its economy. The AI Act in particular has faced intense lobbying pressure from American tech giants in past months. European Commission tech chief Henna Virkkunen told POLITICO this week she would make a call on whether to pause the implementation by end August if standards and guidelines to implement the law are not ready in time. The chief officials lamented that “unclear, overlapping and increasingly complex EU regulations” is disrupting their abilities to do business in Europe. A pause would signal that the EU is serious about simplification and competitiveness to innovators and investors, they added. The pause should apply both to provisions on general-purpose AI that take affect on August 2, as well as systems classified as high-risk, that have to apply the rules in August 2026, the letter said.