Summary

  • BEREC’s 1 October draft report says Open Internet Regulation duties attach to internet-access providers, while AI answer and agent interfaces shape access to information at the application layer.
  • Comments are due in English by 11 November. The report is not law; BEREC says existing instruments and authorities need coordinated implementation and stronger evidence.

The same web page can be reached through two very different routes. A search engine may show a list of links; an AI answer service may select a handful of sources, summarise them and keep the user inside its interface. The connection can remain open while the path to information changes.

That distinction sits at the centre of a draft report BEREC opened for public consultation on 7 October. The Board of Regulators adopted report BoR (26) 141 for consultation during its 1–2 October meetings. The paper treats generative and agentic AI as a new layer of intermediation: answer engines choose and present information, while agents can also carry out tasks for users.

The draft’s sharpest governance point is where the existing Open Internet Regulation stops. BEREC says its duties apply to internet-access providers at the network-connectivity layer. They do not reach content and application provision, where AI services exercise their intermediation power. The report says the January 2026 Digital Networks Act proposal largely preserves that architecture. It therefore does not treat the OIR as an operative tool for the AI-selection concerns it examines.

This is a jurisdictional boundary, not a finding that AI answers are unlawful or that the internet has become closed. BEREC’s draft describes a different control surface. Network rules govern how an access provider carries traffic; an AI interface can influence which sources are shown, how they are represented and whether users visit the original. Calling both problems “openness” does not make them subject to the same rule.

The report says the evidence it reviewed suggests generated answers can reduce traffic to original websites and concentrate attention on fewer sources. It also describes a tension: AI systems depend on publishers, researchers and public-interest organisations for material, while summaries and crawling may weaken some incentives to produce it. Those are findings synthesised from cited evidence, not a BEREC experiment measuring an EU-wide causal effect.

Technical protocols do not settle the governance question. BEREC says MCP and WebMCP could ease interoperability and switching, yet may also increase the influence of providers that control the user-facing interface. It describes robots.txt as the main way publishers signal preferences about AI crawling, while noting limits in transparency and enforceability. A common connector or a crawl signal can clarify an interface; neither, by itself, assigns a regulator or proves what a user saw.

The draft surveys several legal routes rather than proposing one universal fix. It discusses the Digital Markets Act, Digital Services Act, AI Act and Data Act alongside the OIR. BEREC’s conclusion prioritises applying and enforcing existing rules, monitoring their effects and coordinating authorities before deciding whether material gaps remain. The consultation is the chance to test that map against concrete cases: identify the actor, the layer where selection occurred, the evidence of changed access, and the authority responsible for the relevant rule.

Contributions must be submitted in English by close of business on 11 November and should cite the report’s section or paragraph. BEREC says contributors receive an acknowledgement; without it, they should resubmit. It plans to publish contributions and a summary explaining how they informed its final position, subject to confidentiality rules. Neither the consultation nor the draft changes existing law.

Sources

  1. BEREC draft report BoR (26) 141
  2. BEREC consultation page and submission rules
  3. BEREC announcement of 7 October
  4. BEREC public consultation procedure
  5. Regulation (EU) 2018/1971 establishing BEREC
  6. Open Internet Regulation, Regulation (EU) 2015/2120
  7. Digital Markets Act, Regulation (EU) 2022/1925
  8. Digital Services Act, Regulation (EU) 2022/2065
  9. Artificial Intelligence Act, Regulation (EU) 2024/1689
  10. Data Act, Regulation (EU) 2023/2854