EU Orders Google to Give Rival AI Assistants Same New Android Access as Gemini Under Antitrust Rules

BRUSSELS — The European Union issued two binding orders against Google on Thursday, requiring the company to open key parts of its Android operating system to rival artificial intelligence assistants and to share search data with competing search engines, marking one of the most significant enforcement actions yet under the bloc's Digital Markets Act.

The European Commission, the EU's executive arm, said Google must give third-party AI services the same level of access to Android that its own Gemini assistant currently enjoys. Under the ruling, Android users across the bloc will gain the ability to activate their preferred AI assistant using voice commands by July of next year, a change regulators say is intended to give outside developers a genuine opportunity to compete on smart mobile devices rather than being confined to more limited functionality within their own individual apps.

The Commission's order identifies 11 specific feature points spanning four broad categories where Google must grant equal access to rivals. Those categories include the ability for users to invoke a third-party AI assistant much as they would Gemini, access to contextual data drawn from other apps and device sensors that allows an assistant to anticipate a user's needs, the ability to complete tasks across multiple apps rather than remaining confined to a single app's sandbox, and access to on-device hardware and software resources, including scheduling priority and neural processing capabilities that currently give Gemini a performance advantage over competing assistants.

Currently, Gemini can carry out tasks such as sending emails through a user's preferred mail app, ordering food or sharing photos by orchestrating actions across multiple applications through privileged access to Android's underlying systems. Third-party AI assistants, by contrast, have largely been restricted to operating within their own app environment, without the same level of system-wide access. The Commission's order requires Google to open the necessary application programming interfaces, or APIs, to allow qualifying rival assistants to perform similar cross-app functions on equal terms.

Alongside the Android order, the Commission issued a second binding measure requiring Google to share anonymized search data, including ranking, query, click and view information collected by Google Search, with competing search engines. Regulators said the goal of that measure is to help rival search providers improve their own services and offer more viable alternatives to Google Search, including for AI chatbot providers seeking access to the same kind of data Google uses to refine its own products. Google is required to begin sharing that search data with rivals by January 2027, on terms that will be evaluated by an independent third party to ensure the data has been properly anonymized.

Google has been given roughly a year to implement the required changes, with the bulk of the Android-related modifications due to be rolled out in the next major version of the operating system, expected in July 2027, according to multiple reports. That timeline applies before any legal appeals Google may choose to pursue against the rulings.

The orders represent an escalation of a process that began earlier this month, when the Commission first opened what regulators describe as "specification proceedings" to determine exactly how Google should comply with the Digital Markets Act's equal-access requirements. At the time those proceedings were opened, Clare Kelly, Google's senior competition counsel, pushed back on the rationale behind the review. "Android is open by design, and we're already licensing Search data to competitors under the DMA," Kelly said in a statement. "However, we are concerned that further rules which are often driven by competitor grievances rather than the interest of consumers, will compromise user privacy, security, and innovation."

Following Thursday's formal orders, Kent Walker, Google's president of global affairs, issued a more pointed response, warning that the decisions could weaken protections currently in place for users across the continent. Walker said the rulings "risk undermining vital privacy and security guardrails for millions of Europeans," and argued that regulators had disregarded evidence the company had presented regarding potential harm to users, adding that further opening up Android would weaken device security.

Fiona Scott Morton, a Yale economist and senior fellow at the Brussels-based think tank Bruegel who published a working paper on the specification process earlier this month, offered a more favorable assessment of the Commission's approach. She wrote that the four access categories identified by regulators correctly capture the elements that determine whether a rival AI assistant can function as a genuine device-level service, comparable to Gemini, or remains limited to operating as just another downloaded app. Scott Morton argued that if enforced as adopted, the measures would help prevent the monopolization of AI services across the European market.

The rulings against Google echo a separate dispute the Commission has been navigating with Apple over similar Digital Markets Act interoperability requirements. Apple has said its own Siri AI assistant will not be available in the European Union when iOS 27 launches, after the company's attempts to negotiate a compliance framework with regulators broke down. Apple had proposed a system built around what it described as a Trusted System designed to preserve user privacy and security while meeting the bloc's interoperability rules, but EU officials declined to accept any of the company's proposed solutions. Unlike Apple, Google opted to launch its own Gemini integration on Android first and address regulatory compliance afterward, a strategy that has allowed Android users across Europe to retain full access to Gemini even as the compliance process with Brussels continues.

Thursday's enforcement action adds to a growing list of regulatory challenges Google has faced in Europe under the Digital Markets Act, including ongoing reviews into whether the company favors its own services in search results and how it manages developer access within its Play Store ecosystem. The Commission has separately upheld a record antitrust fine exceeding €4 billion against Google over its Android practices in prior enforcement actions, underscoring the sustained scrutiny facing the company's mobile platform across the European market.