Beyond Intermediaries

Recent investigations into the dissemination of illegal content generated by Grok have exposed a structural gap in the EU’s legislative framework: while the Digital Services Act equips the European Commission with far-reaching powers over large online platforms, it does not clearly capture generative AI systems per se. As a result, the Commission may be able to act against platforms integrating such systems (such as X), but not necessarily against the systems themselves (such as Grok). This asymmetry raises a broader question that has increasingly gained attention in policy and academic debates: can generative AI applications be brought within the scope of the DSA?