EU orders Google to open Android to rival AI assistants

TL;DR:

• The European Commission has set out Digital Markets Act requirements forcing Google to open 11 Android features to rival AI assistants from the next Android release in 2027.
• Google must also share the data it uses to optimise search with OpenAI and other AI chatbots offering search, anonymised and priced by a set formula, from January.
• Google says the decisions risk undermining privacy and security guardrails for millions of Europeans.

EU regulators have spelled out how Google must comply with the Digital Markets Act, six months after opening specification proceedings against the world’s most-used search engine. The headline change: 11 Android operating-system features will open to rival AI services, letting users summon a competing assistant by voice command — much like “hey Google” — to book a taxi or look up places. The changes reach users from July 2027 in the next Android iteration.

A second requirement bites sooner. From January, Google must share the data it collects to optimise its own search with OpenAI and other AI chatbots that offer search functions, subject to anonymisation and a pricing formula set out in the decision. Google can vet rivals for cybersecurity and data-protection risk before opening access, and the Commission says only companies meeting security and privacy criteria will qualify.

Google’s lawyer Kent Walker called the decisions a risk to “vital privacy and security guardrails”, saying the company had repeatedly offered alternative solutions. EU tech chief Henna Virkkunen framed the aim squarely as market structure: emerging alternatives to Google Search and Gemini, and more choice for EU users.

The view from outside the EU

None of this applies automatically in Britain. The UK’s parallel route runs through the Competition and Markets Authority’s digital markets regime, which moves case by case rather than by prescribed feature lists — so UK businesses building AI assistants may find the EU market opens to them before their home one does. How Brussels’ more prescriptive approach performs will inevitably shape the argument over which regime gets better results, a debate already sharpened by academic criticism of the EU AI Act’s rigidity.

Looking forward

The data-sharing obligation starts in January and the Android changes in July 2027. The practical test is whether rival assistants actually gain users once the plumbing opens — and whether Google’s warnings about degraded security prove prescient or tactical.