Are we becoming a nation mined for our data and attention? And what legal limits, if any, constrain the firms that profit from this extraction economy? Today’s dominant technology firms not only collect behavioral and transaction data, but also integrate, analyze, and leverage it as part of their market power. Big Tech refers to the specific firms Alphabet (Google), Meta (Facebook), Apple, Amazon, and Microsoft, as these firms have platforms that depend on massive data collection, extensive market reach, and a large customer base while offering free or low-cost services to consumers. “Big Tech” shapes the information economy in ways that outpace the ability of federal courts and antitrust enforcement agencies to respond. The rapid rise of generative artificial intelligence (“AI”) amplifies these dynamics by creating new forms of market power and anticompetitive risks, particularly price-fixing. This article examines how Big Tech’s use of AI systems interacts with existing antitrust doctrine. By doing so, it argues that the consumer-welfare standard, which has governed U.S. antitrust for nearly half a century, is poorly equipped to evaluate AI-mediated conduct in digital markets.

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