The European Union issued two new binding rules for Google on Thursday, requiring the company to open its Android operating system to competing artificial intelligence services and share search data with rival companies.
The measures, announced by the European Commission, are part of a broader effort to reduce what Brussels sees as a chokehold that large technology platforms have over the digital economy. According to ABC News, Henna Virkkunen, an executive vice president at the European Commission overseeing tech policy, said: "Thanks to these measures, we hope to see emerging alternatives to Google Search and Google's AI services, such as Gemini, and that users in the EU can enjoy greater choice of services."
Under the new rules, Google must allow alternative AI assistants on Android phones to be activated by voice and to run background tasks, such as booking restaurants through third-party apps. The commission found that AI agents not made by Google were unable to function on Android at the same level as Google's own Gemini assistant.
By January 2027, Google must also begin sharing anonymized search data with some competing companies. The commission said Google controls a volume of user data that no competitor can match, and that sharing it is necessary to level the playing field.
Google's parent company Alphabet pushed back against both measures. Kent Walker, president of global affairs for Google and Alphabet, warned the rules could undermine user privacy. "Europeans' private searches would be exposed to unfamiliar companies, without adequate anonymization of the data and without user knowledge or consent. This would weaken citizens' privacy, risk business trade secrets, and endanger national security," he said in a statement.
The commission's actions are part of a pattern. In recent months, Brussels has pushed Google to give rival companies access to its Gemini AI services, required Apple to add interoperability features connecting to non-Apple products, and ordered Meta to remove what it called "key addictive features" like infinite scrolling.
U.S. President Donald Trump has publicly criticized EU technology regulation in the past. The new rules apply only to users and companies within the 27-nation bloc.
The January 2027 deadline for the search data sharing requirement gives Google roughly 18 months to build the technical systems needed for compliance.
