Generative AI is becoming a decisive instrument of geopolitical influence, with mobile download data showing continued U.S. dominance, China's rapidly expanding AI ecosystem, and Europe's comparatively weak position. While China is gaining ground through platforms such as Dola AI, embodied AI offers Europe a strategic opportunity to leverage its strengths in robotics. The article notes that technological spheres of influence have existed since the internet's emergence, but artificial intelligence adds the attribute of reasoning to an external actor’s influence. In the age of AI, control has become intelligent, with machines having much more autonomy and leeway to exert control on behalf of companies and countries. For instance, DeepSeek writes erroneous code for engineering projects that concern Tibet (CrowdStrike, 2025), thereby putting certain users at a disadvantage. In this case, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) instructs companies to write code that aligns with CCP values (Sprick, 2025), and DeepSeek code would carry out this command. On the U.S. side, the CLOUD Act allows U.S. authorities to examine data held by U.S. companies no matter where the data is kept (Foitzick, 2020). The impact in the age of AI compared to before is much more vast, subtle and lasting.