The European Union has unveiled a significant set of proposed measures aimed at compelling Google to open its Android operating system to competing artificial intelligence assistants, a move intended to bolster digital competition and ensure user choice.
These proposals, which represent a major escalation in the ongoing regulatory battle between the European Commission and the tech giant, seek to guarantee that rival AI services can effectively interact with applications on Android devices.
Under the current system, the Commission argues that Google restricts much of this deep-level functionality to its own proprietary tools, such as the Gemini assistant, effectively creating a closed ecosystem that stifles broader innovation.
The European Commission emphasized that these measures are essential to align Android with the Digital Markets Act (DMA), stating, “the proposed measures aim to ensure that competing AI services can effectively interact with apps on users’ Android devices and execute tasks accordingly, such as sending an email via the user’s preferred email app, ordering meals or sharing a photo with friends.”
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By facilitating this interoperability, the EU hopes to dismantle the barriers that currently prevent third-party AI assistants from competing on an equal footing, ultimately fostering a more dynamic market for mobile software and services.
Google has vehemently pushed back against these regulatory requirements, warning that such intervention could have unintended consequences for the security and integrity of the Android platform.
Clare Kelly, the company’s legal counsel for competition, argued that the Android ecosystem already allows for significant partner autonomy, noting that device manufacturers are currently free to integrate and customize their preferred AI experiences.
The company contends that forcing these changes would not only impose unnecessary technical and financial burdens but could also compromise the stringent privacy and security protections that users currently rely on, effectively undermining the safety of the operating system by granting broad, sensitive data access to third-party tools.
This clash is part of a preliminary conciliation procedure launched earlier this year, which seeks to bring Google into full compliance with the DMA’s mandate to curb the dominance of major digital gatekeepers. With the Commission also pursuing separate measures to force the company to share search data, the pressure on Google to fundamentally alter its business practices is reaching a critical juncture.
The European executive is expected to finalize the specific requirements by mid-July, at which point the company will face a definitive decision that could reshape the functionality of the most widely used mobile operating system in the world.
