The U.K.'s competition regulator, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), has approved Microsoft's (MSFT) acquisition involving the chatbot developer Inflection AI. This deal encompasses a licensing agreement and the onboarding of former Inflection AI employees.
Valued at approximately $650 million, the CMA concluded that the transaction does not fall under a "relevant merger situation" within its regulatory jurisdiction and does not present any significant competitive concerns.
Joel Bamford, the Executive Director of Mergers at the CMA, shared on LinkedIn, "Inflection AI is not a strong competitor to the consumer chatbots that Microsoft has developed directly (Copilot) and in partnership with OpenAI (ChatGPT). On this basis, we cleared the transaction."
In March, Microsoft announced that it had hired key personnel from Inflection AI, including co-founders Mustafa Suleyman and Karen Simonyan, alongside securing a licensing deal for the AI firm's intellectual property.
The antitrust regulator's review aimed to ensure that the deal would not significantly impact competition within the artificial intelligence market.
As of now, Microsoft's stock is trading at $407.83 on the Nasdaq, marking a decline of 0.39 percent.
