Businesses and threat actors are taking up generative AI at pace, posing challenges for regulators worldwide. As governments in Europe, the United States and beyond strive to improve oversight, expect an increase in tech-specific regulations to balance innovation and risk. Learn more about the outlook for 2025, as well as key trends and sector matter highlights.
Key Technology Sector Trends and Developments
- Vendor/supply chain breaches and ransom/cyber extortion show no sign of a slowdown. The use of artificial intelligence (AI) to perpetrate fraud and intrusions alongside bolder actions by threat actors – calling companies and executives, for example – also remains on the rise.
- OpenAI and others are racing to deploy upgrades to generative AI across the economy. Meanwhile, corporate America is leveraging AI to automate tasks in a range of sectors, from finance and healthcare to automotive and cybersecurity, among others.
- Demand for the hardware, software and computing power generative AI needs has increased market valuations for tech companies providing these services, which is having spillover effects in industries such as energy.
- Regulators and the plaintiffs’ bar are seeking to bring privacy litigation claims over the gathering and sharing of data via website pixels (tiny, invisible images), with attempts to broaden the type of data that is protected, even innocuous data like simple website browsing.
Several Regulatory Issues Dominate the Sector:
- Regulators are scrutinizing digital platforms like Google Android regarding whether gatekeepers can self-preference their products.
- Efforts in Europe, California and elsewhere are beginning to address the use of generative AI through regulation.
- Antitrust investigations and litigation are targeting pricing algorithm software, with concerns that companies are using third-party software to circumvent price-fixing bans.
- Efforts are under way to remove legal immunity for online platforms on harms arising from malicious user content.
- Attempts to regulate incident response through mandatory reporting are continuing, including of ransom payments, though this has not led to an increase in catching perpetrators.
Outlook for Technology in 2025
U.S. antitrust lawsuits against major tech companies, especially Google, will dominate. A hearing in April 2025 will determine remedies following last year’s decision that Google illegally monopolized general search and general search text advertising. This could affect the future of search and generative AI.
A decision is imminent in a separate lawsuit alleging Google’s illegal monopolization of digital advertising tools. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals will review a jury’s verdict that Google forces Android users to use only Google’s payment processing services. U.S. antitrust authorities are also targeting Meta, Apple and Amazon.
Similar trends are expected in Europe, with antitrust investigations and lawsuits against major tech businesses, alongside technology-specific regulations such as the UK Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act, which came into force in January 2025.
AI in the Spotlight
AI will remain front and center in the cyber and privacy space. Expect increased regulatory actions designed to keep companies honest in their AI claims – and expect allegations around companies’ giving third parties data that they then allegedly used to train their AI models.
Pixel litigation will be a favorite of the plaintiffs’ bar. Though with the defeat of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in Texas litigation (which was first appealed by the government and then settled) rightly determining website browsing is not the equivalent of health information, perhaps some level of common sense will prevail.
Lastly, cyberattacks have grown in frequency and sophistication year over year for more than a decade, with law enforcement having been proven largely unsuccessful in bringing the threat actors to justice. We expect this trend to continue.
Dechert represented Microsoft senior executives, including CEO Satya Nadella, to testify as a third party in support of DOJ in the U.S. government’s antitrust case alleging Google engaged in anticompetitive behavior to create and protect a monopoly in search. Dechert drove strategy during third-party discovery and oversaw the preparation and defense of numerous Microsoft executives at deposition and trial. Dechert also represents Microsoft division Nuance Communications in 10 class actions. Nuance relied on third-party software for secure file storage and transfer, which cybercriminals exploited in the largest data breach of 2023.