DUBLIN, May 29 (Reuters) - The world's leading internet

firms are engaging extensively with regulators in the European

Union to ensure their artificial-intelligence products do not

fall foul of the bloc's strict data protection rules, Ireland's

powerful data regulator said.

Ireland's Data Protection Commission, lead EU regulator for

Alphabet's Google, Meta, Microsoft ( MSFT ),

TikTok and OpenAI, among others, said that its broad powers had

not yet been tested on AI and it could in future force changes

to business models to ensure data privacy is protected.

AI creates a number of potential issues for data privacy,

the two top officials at Ireland's Data Protection Commission

said in an interview on Tuesday.

Regulators need to decide whether companies should be

allowed to trawl the internet for public data to train AI

models, and on what legal basis personal data can be used.

AI operators also need to explain they can ensure

individuals' data rights, including the right to erase their

data. The risk of AI models giving incorrect personal data about

individuals must also be addressed, the Irish officials said.

"There has been extensive engagement" from leading U.S. tech

firms including Google, Meta, TikTok, LinkedIn and OpenAI, said

Dale Sunderland, one of the Irish regulator's two Data

Protection Commissioners.

"They're seeking our views on some of their new products in

the AI space, particularly the large language model space."

Google agreed to delay and make changes to its Gemini AI

chatbot following consultations with the Irish regulator, he

said.

While Ireland is the lead regulator for most of the top U.S.

internet firms due to the location of their EU head offices in

the country, other regulators can have a say in decisions via

the European Data Protection Board, which is currently working

on guidance on how AI should operate under EU data protection

law, he said.

AI model operators from next month will have to comply with

the EU's landmark new AI Act. But they will also have to comply

with the bloc's key data protection law, the General Data

Protection Regulation, which can impose fines of up to 4% of a

firm's total global turnover.

"The power of national regulators, including us, is quite

broad," said Des Hogan, Ireland's other Data Protection

Commissioner and chair of the commission.

"If they haven't done proper due diligence around the

impacts of new products or services ... they run that risk of

having to change the design downstream."