The European Commission is compelling Google to dismantle longstanding competitive barriers around its Android operating system, opening the mobile platform to rival artificial intelligence services. Under two binding decisions adopted on July 16 under the Digital Markets Act, Google must provide competing AI assistants with free access to eleven core Android functions that have so far been reserved for Gemini. The move arrives shortly after the Court of Justice upheld a €4.1 billion antitrust fine against the company, marking a second major regulatory setback in Europe within weeks.
A new landscape for voice and task assistants
The obligations mean users should eventually be able to choose assistants from providers such as ChatGPT, Claude or Perplexity with the same deep system integration Gemini enjoys today. That includes waking the chosen assistant with a hotword comparable to “Hey Google,” even while the display is turned off, and having it carry out in-app actions like drafting emails, creating calendar entries or placing food orders. Proactive suggestions, live translation and access to on-device AI models such as Gemini Nano also appear on the list of resources Google must open. The Commission stresses that no feature will be activated without the user’s explicit consent. A previous similar intervention against Meta has already shown the effects of such platform opening: ChatGPT subsequently returned to WhatsApp.
Timetable and search-data requirements
None of the changes are operational yet. Google is required to deliver them with the release of Android 18, which must be available by August 1, 2027 at the latest. Simultaneous hotword detection for multiple assistants—allowing a device to listen for more than one wake phrase at the same time—is granted a longer deadline, to be fulfilled with Android 19 by August 2028. A separate obligation concerns search: Google must supply anonymized search queries and results to competing search engines, explicitly including AI-powered chatbots that offer search functionality. The data feed has to be technically ready by November 2026, and a pricing model must be published by January 2027.
Privacy safeguards and industry pushback
Google’s chief legal officer Kent Walker sharply criticized the decisions, warning they risk weakening privacy and security protections for millions of Europeans. The Commission counters that direct identifiers such as usernames and IP addresses will be stripped from the shared search dataset. Rare queries that might point to individuals will be suppressed, and every user will be aggregated into a cohort of at least 1,000 people sharing the same language, region and device class. Independent audits are mandated annually to verify these measures. While Google is expected to appeal, EU rules specify that an appeal does not suspend the duty to comply.
Sources: digital-markets-act.ec.europa.eu, digital-markets-act.ec.europa.eu, www.cnbc.com