Google must give Gemini rivals equal access to Android system, EU says

The EU aims to pressure Google to re-engineer its services in order to bring their technologies in line with the bloc’s rule

The EU watchdog said that under the bloc’s Digital Markets Act Google must allow users to activate their preferred AI assistant via voice commands by July next year. The European Commission also said that by January 2027 third-party search engines should have the same access to search data that currently only Google Search can collect at scale — particularly from AI chat bots. While the announcement is not a finding of non-compliance with the DMA, it aims to pressure Google to re-engineer its services in order to bring their technologies in line with the bloc’s rule — which lays out a raft guardrails to keep Big Tech behaviour in check.

“Society is going through a profound digital transformation. We need to keep that process fair and ensure that our citizens have choice,” EU competition chief Teresa Ribera said in a statement on Thursday. “Our decision will help smaller competitors, search engines, or AI assistants, to compete and provide that choice, while protecting the user’s privacy.”

The escalation comes as Alphabet Inc.’s Google separately faces significant fines running into multiple millions under the DMA, over allegations it unfairly favours in-house services across its sprawling search empire and for preventing app developers from steering consumers to offers outside of its Play Store. For its part, Google rebutted the EU’s escalation on Wednesday, with Global Affairs President Kent Walker saying that the decisions “risk undermining vital privacy and security guardrails for millions of Europeans.” In a statement, he said that the company has “repeatedly offered solutions to safeguard users while satisfying the DMA’s goals, but these rulings discount extensive evidence of user harm.”