Paris, January 29, 2026 – France’s competition authority, the Autorité de la concurrence, has launched a public consultation on conversational agents as part of its preparation of an upcoming opinion on the sector.
The consultation follows the Autorité’s decision, announced on January 9, 2026, to open ex officio inquiries into the competitive functioning of the conversational agents sector. Stakeholders are invited to submit responses to the consultation by March 6, 2026.
According to the Autorité, the consultation aims to gather feedback from market participants on a range of issues related to conversational agents. Contributions will not be published, although the names of contributing companies or organisations may be cited in the final opinion unless they expressly indicate otherwise.
The initiative builds on the Autorité’s earlier work on artificial intelligence, including Opinion 24-A-05 of June 28, 2024, which examined competition in the generative AI sector, particularly upstream segments of the value chain, as well as a study published in December 2025 on competition issues linked to the energy and environmental impact of AI.
In its forthcoming opinion, the Autorité said it will focus on the downstream segment of the AI value chain, notably the development and use of conversational agents. The analysis will cover issues such as the integration of advertising into conversational agents, their incorporation into existing services, partnerships involving conversational agent developers, and the evolution of these tools.
The Autorité will also examine competition issues related to the use of conversational agents in e-commerce. It noted, however, that the relationship between conversational agents and search engines does not fall within the scope of the consultation.
