AUTHORSHIP

Aidan Smith

INSIGHTS

12 June 2026

In the AI age, the American Innovation and Choice Online Act is more relevant than ever

AI development since 2022 has only reinforced the relevance of self-preferencing legislation

Attribution: James Yarema (Unsplash)

I. Introduction

ISSUE AREAS

ANTITRUST & COMPETITION

TECH REGULATION

On June 11, 2021, five years and one day ago, the lawmakers would introduce a package of tech sector-focused antitrust bills following the House Antitrust Subcommittee’s investigation into competition in digital markets. One of these bills, the American Innovation and Choice Online Act (AICOA), would be marked up by the subcommittee later that month, and over the next year and a half would be the subject of one of the most expensive lobbying campaigns in American history. AICOA aimed to end Big Tech companies’ abilities to “self-preference” their own services at the expense of competitors, a tactic leveraged by the GAFA companies (Google, Amazon, Facebook, and Apple) to maintain their dominance. A bipartisan coalition in Congress continued to push for its passage for the remainder of the 117th Congress. Despite having apparently enough votes to pass, hostility from party leaders, including then-Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, proved an insurmountable obstacle. A final effort in December 2022 to include AICOA in that year’s annual spending legislation would falter, and it would ultimately fail to become law.

On the fifth anniversary of its initial House introduction, the bill was reintroduced on June 11, 2026 by Sens. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and Chuck Grassley (R-IA). In the half-decade since the bill’s initial introduction, both the political climate in Washington and the tech sector have changed considerably. The rapid development of generative AI from 2022 onwards has transformed both the tech industry as well as society at-large. Accordingly, tech industry lobbying groups responded to its reintroduction by claiming AICOA is an outdated proposal unworthy of consideration. But on the contrary, shifts in the post-2022 digital landscape have only heightened the relevance of self-preferencing as a policy issue.

While many assumed the generative AI boom would challenge the structural advantages of the GAFA companies, AI development has instead strengthened the dominance of these powerful incumbents. In the early 2020s, concerns over self-preferencing centered on matters such as Google privileging its own search engine over competitors, or Amazon self-preferencing its products on its marketplace. In the modern AI era, these practices have taken on new forms, such as Google self-preferencing its Gemini model, or Meta’s WhatsApp restricting rival chatbots in order to eliminate competition. The possibility that Congress' past failure to pass self-preferencing legislation has contributed to these anti-competitive practices by tech companies in the AI era is one that lawmakers should take seriously.

II. AICOA and Digital Competition

LEGISLATIVE PROVISIONS

AICOA is designed to promote digital competition by establishing clear and enforceable rules to curtail self-preferencing by Big Tech platforms. Under the legislation, “covered platforms” are prohibited from giving an unfair advantage to their own products or services. In recognition of their built-in structural advantages, the bill aims to prevent covered platforms from misusing non-public data to undermine competitors. It would also prevent covered platforms from limiting rival firms' access to critical features of their platforms, which often renders smaller firms unable to compete.

The bill also takes aim at dominant platforms' practice of locking consumers into default settings, a tactic that often renders smaller firms that offer competing services unviable. Other provisions of the bill include, among other things, restrictions on covered platforms’ ability to prevent users from moving their data to rival platforms. In recognition of changes in market dynamics, the bill differs from the proposal in the 117th Congress in how it defines a "covered platform": requirements for market capitalization, annual gross revenue, and number of active users have all been adjusted to reflect new market realities.

SUPPORT AND PUBLIC RECEPTION

In the 117th Congress, the legislation commanded strong bipartisan support in both houses of Congress, with the Senate version (S.2992) receiving cosponsorships from members as ideologically diverse as Sens. Josh Hawley (R-MO) to Richard Blumenthal (D-CT). The new version of the legislation has immediately been co-sponsored by both members, along with Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), and Cory Booker (D-NJ), all of whom had also cosponsored S.2992. As the press release notes, the new bill has garnered support from progressive and pro-consumer advocacy groups including the Economic Security Project, Demand Progress, and the Open Markets Institute, along with a number of conservative organizations, such as the Bull Moose Project. The bill has also received endorsements from within the tech industry, including from Yelp, DuckDuckGo, and Y Combinator.

Though more recent polling data on AICOA is unavailable, surveys taken in 2022 provide a useful baseline. Polling at the time found strong support for the legislation across the political spectrum. In an op-ed I published in June 2022, I noted how polling in conservative areas, such as Ohio’s 4th district, found meaningful support for the legislation. Polling on AICOA in Democratic states also found wide support for the proposal, such as California, where over 70% of respondents indicated support for the bill in a July 2022 survey. Of particular interest is that a survey conducted by a leading tech industry-funded group, which opposed AICOA, ultimately found broad support for the bill in a poll of swing state voters. These results are consistent with more modern polling on tech policy issues, which has often found bipartisan support for tech regulation proposals.

III. Conclusion

In 2022, opponents of AICOA pointed to a temporary decline in Meta’s market capitalization to argue that the legislation was unneeded. The company formerly known as Facebook Inc., less than a year after its rebranding, would fall below $600 billion, a statistic opponents of antitrust reform would cite as a reason to abandon the legislation. Today, Meta Platforms commands a market cap of some $1.4 trillion, and is currently embroiled in legal action abroad over its anti-competitive efforts to limit rival AI assistants within WhatsApp. This is to say that the fact that the trajectory of the tech industry can often be unpredictable does not undermine the case for structural guardrails. On the contrary, it reinforces it. As AI development has accelerated, so too has the case for enacting laws to prohibit self-preferencing by dominant platforms.

IV. Additional notes

Formally known as the House Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Antitrust, Commercial, and Administrative Law during the 117th Congress

Aidan Smith
Founder, Labyrinth Insights