EU Orders Google to Open Android to Rival AI Assistants
3 min readEurope just rewrote the rules for who gets to talk to your phone. On July 16 the European Commission issued two binding decisions under the Digital Markets Act ordering Google to give rival AI assistants the same system-level Android access it currently reserves for Gemini, and to share the search data that underpins its lead in AI-powered search.
How Google Android AI Assistants Worked Until Now
Gemini has enjoyed privileges no competitor could match. It answers to a voice trigger baked into the operating system, it can reach across apps, and it taps into Android functions that third-party assistants simply cannot call. Rivals such as OpenAI, Perplexity and Anthropic have been stuck building ordinary apps that a user must open by hand.
The Digital Markets Act, the EU competition law that designates a handful of large platforms as gatekeepers, gives the Commission the power to force those platforms open. Google has already been the subject of several DMA proceedings. These two decisions are the first to target AI assistants directly.
What the Commission Ordered
The first decision covers Android interoperability. Users will be able to activate a preferred assistant by voice, the same way “Hey Google” works today, and let that assistant act inside apps on their behalf. The Commission cites examples such as booking a taxi, suggesting replies in a chat app, or answering questions about a place the user recently visited. Eleven groups of Android features are covered, subject to certification and explicit user consent.
The second decision covers data. Google must offer anonymized search query and ranking data to rival search engines and AI chatbot providers on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms. Data sharing begins in January 2027, and the Android changes are expected to reach users by July 2027.
Google pushed back the same day. Kent Walker, president of global affairs, argued the orders risk weakening privacy and security protections for Europeans, warning that private searches could reach unfamiliar companies and that business secrets could be exposed.
Why It Matters
Distribution has been the quiet advantage in the assistant race. A model that lives behind a home button gets used far more than one buried in an app drawer, and search logs are among the most valuable training and grounding data in existence. Forcing both open in the world’s second largest smartphone market changes the shape of the competition.
Watch for how “certification” is defined in practice. That process is where a genuine opening can quietly become a narrow one.