Though AI search (both AI functionalities and AI chatbots) shares some similarities with traditional search engines, it risks deepening the imbalances and harms already associated with search. This is particularly true as AI search become increasingly predominent.

And yet the current European regulatory landscape seems ill prepared. The Digital Services Act’s focus on the ongoing operational oversight of user-generated content and the AI Act’s emphasis on pre-deployment product safety create a regulatory divide that AI search systems traverse uneasily.

How can this regulatory fault line be better navigated? How can regulatory gaps be better filled to adapt to this new reality?

To address these gaps, we propose a new conceptual framework that responds to these shortcomings by introducing anticipatory forms of governance in AI search.

We also outline a set of policy propositions that address the risks of AI search, based on three case studies: Copilot in Bing, Gemini, and ChatGPT.