Brussels has ordered Google to open Android's AI features and share anonymized search data with rivals from 2027. The fight now is not whether access exists, but whether users will bother to use it.
The European Commission adopted two binding decisions on July 16. They force Google to do something it has resisted for years: give rival AI assistants access to key Android features and share the search data that has helped keep Google Search ahead. If you use an Android phone in Europe, this isn't a distant antitrust story. It is about which assistant answers when you speak to your phone. It's about what that assistant can see on your screen - and what it can do inside your other apps.
According to the Commission's published decision, Google must open 11 Android features relevant to AI services, including voice invocation, on-screen context, and the ability to carry out actions in apps. The examples are ordinary, which is the point. Booking a taxi, suggesting a reply in a chat app, or answering a question about a place you've just visited are exactly the small interactions that make an assistant useful instead of decorative.
Search data sharing starts in January 2027. Android changes must arrive in Android 18, by August 1, 2027 at the latest, while concurrent wake-word detection must follow in Android 19, by August 1, 2028. That's a long runway for Google. It is also a deadline with teeth under the Digital Markets Act.
Reuters reported that Kent Walker, Google's president of global affairs and chief legal officer, said the decisions "risk undermining vital privacy and security guardrails for millions of Europeans" and that the rulings "discount extensive evidence of user harm." Google had been arguing its case since January 27, when the Commission opened specification proceedings to define how the DMA should apply here. It lost the argument for narrower terms.
The Data Fight Is The Real One #
The Commission isn't just asking Google to make Android more welcoming. It is going after the two assets that make Gemini hard to dislodge: placement inside the operating system and the search data that helps train better answers. OpenAI can build a popular app without that. Perplexity can pitch itself as a cleaner way to search without that. But neither can pretend distribution and data don't matter.
Frankly, this is the part Google should worry about most. The data won't be handed over for free, and the Commission says the sharing must be anonymized, but the price will be calculated through a fair formula rather than whatever Google can extract from a rival. That changes the negotiation before it begins.
The Commission also says AI chatbots with search functionality can qualify for access to the data Google collects to optimize its own search services. That wording matters. It pulls the order beyond old search-engine competitors and into the market where ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and others are trying to become the first place you ask a question.
There are guardrails here. The Commission says Google can assess whether a specific third party poses serious cybersecurity or data-protection risks before sharing data. The wider body of EU privacy and security law, including the GDPR and Cyber Resilience Act, still applies. Google will argue that isn't enough. Brussels is saying competition cannot stop at the edge of Google's security argument.
The Delay Helps Google #
None of this lands tomorrow. Search data doesn't start moving until January 2027, and full wake-word parity waits until August 2028. In AI time, that is not a grace period. It is a product cycle, maybe two.
Google's opening is obvious. It has months to make Gemini feel native and hard to give up before rivals get the same Android hooks. Regulators can order access to an interface. They can't make a user dig through settings and switch defaults - let alone stay switched after the first awkward response.
Still, the order hits at the right pressure point. AI assistants are becoming the new front door to the internet, sitting between you and search results, apps, maps, messages, shopping and payments. If one company controls that layer on the world's dominant mobile operating system, the next version of search competition may be over before most people notice it has begun.
The Commission's bet is that legal access can create real alternatives. That is not guaranteed. Some DMA remedies have produced compliance screens and choice pages that users mostly ignore. OpenAI, Perplexity and other eligible rivals still have to build integrations people actually want, and they have to do it under Google's privacy and security review as well as EU rules.
But the direction is clear. Brussels is no longer treating AI assistants as another app category. It is treating them as infrastructure. Google can appeal, complain and build around the order. It probably will. The dates remain fixed for now: search data in January 2027, Android 18 access by August 1, 2027. Wake-word parity follows a year later, by August 1, 2028.
Also read: China's Kimi K3 and Qwen3.8 Are Rattling Silicon Valley's AI Giants • Zhongji Innolight Raises Hong Kong IPO Target to $7 Billion • Skyroot Aerospace's Vikram-1 Rocket Reaches Orbit on Its First Real Attempt