News
Visma Dinero’s AI Assistant Had Potential to Harm Competition in Multiple Markets
Visma Dinero, who offers accounting services, was in the process of launching a new AI assistant potentially violating competition law by facilitating the exchange of sensitive information between competitors. The Danish Competition and Consumer Authority has informed Dinero about the potential infringement. Dinero has therefore halted the launch of this version of the AI assistant.
Director General of the Danish Competition and Consumer Authority, Jakob Hald, says:
We have found it necessary to emphasize to Visma Dinero, that the AI assistant could potentially be used to gain excessively detailed insight into the cost and price levels of competitors. We conducted a dawn raid at Dinero prior to the launch of the AI assistant, and can now confirm that this version of the AI assistant will not be released to the market.
If the anti-competitive features of Dinero’s AI assistant had been rolled out, there would have been a risk that companies in many different markets would violate competition law. It is the companies’ own responsibility to comply with the competition rules. They can therefore also be held accountable for using an AI tool to provide a benchmark for where their price and cost levels should be in relation to their competitors.
It can be very harmful to end-users if companies in this way get direct access to sensitive information about their closest competitors almost in real-time – even if it is only average figures. Among other things, this can normalize prices and reduce the incentive to compete on delivering the best and cheapest solutions to customers, regardless of whether these are business clients or consumers. [translated by the authority]
The Danish Competition and Consumer Authority has informed Visma Dinero that the exchange of information between competitors via Dinero's accounting software’s AI-based assistant may constitute a violation of competition law. This concerns an AI assistant with benchmarking features that has been tested by selected users.
The AI-based assistant in Dinero analysed each company’s own accounting data and compared them anonymously with average data from other Dinero customers in the same industry and region. The assistant, among other things, showed how the company’s hourly wage, contribution margin, marketing costs, and rental costs compared to the industry and regional averages. Based on this, the tool – together with factors such as the company’s capacity utilization and customer reputation – made concrete recommendations, e.g., to consider raising prices if the company was below the average.
The Danish Competition and Consumer Authority became aware that Visma Dinero’s AI assistant potentially violated competition rules when it was marketed in May 2025, including in press and social media posts.
For example, Visma Dinero’s CEO wrote in a LinkedIn post:
"We let AI work actively with the company's own data and compare it anonymously with data from the other 99,000 companies using Dinero […] Here are some of the concrete suggestions our virtual CFO can already offer — or will soon be able to offer: * Price optimization: You are charging 10% less than the average for carpenters in Copenhagen. Consider raising your prices." [translated by the authority]
Visma Dinero disabled the potentially illegal features during the Authority’s dawn raid in June 2025.
For further information
Contact the Head of Communications at the Danish Competition and Consumer Authority, Hanne Arentoft, at the phone number +45 41 71 50 98.
Companies Use of Digital Tools and Competition Law
- It is the company’s own responsibility to comply with the competition rules.
- As a general rule, it will be illegal for a company to use a digital tool that provides access to sensitive information about their competitors.
- It can also be illegal if the information the company receives is presented, e.g. as averages for a group of competitors.
- The use of a digital tool will normally be legal if it does not contain competitive sensitive information that the company can use to calculate its own prices and costs.
- If the digital tool contains information that can be perceived as a benchmark for, e.g. where the company’s price and cost levels should be, the use of the tool will constitute a violation of the competition rules.
- Sensitive information about competitors can be more than just prices and costs, e.g. customer lists, cooperation agreements, and production data can also be illegal to exchange between competitors.
- The competition rules are in place to protect the customers from, e.g. the creation of a standard for the minimum price of a product or service.
Links
- Read the Danish Competition and Consumer Authority’s notice regarding possible information exchange between competitors via Dinero’s AI-based assistant and its benchmarking features.
- Read the Danish Competition and Consumer Authority’s guidance “Kommunikation i brancheforeninger og konkurrencereglerne”, where in particular figure 2.1 with examples of legal and illegal communication as well as chapter 4 on calculation tools will be relevant
- Press photo of Jakob Hald