EU Orders Google to Open Android to OpenAI — and Share Its Search Data

The European Union’s latest salvo against Big Tech landed in Mountain View on Thursday, and this one has teeth. Under the Digital Markets Act, regulators are forcing Google to open up core pieces of Android to competing AI services — including OpenAI — and to share the search data that powers its own products.

The European Commission published its specific requirements on Thursday, six months after launching what it calls “specification proceedings” to figure out how Google should comply with the DMA. The answer, it turns out, is sweeping.

Google must open 11 features of the Android operating system to third-party AI companies, giving them access to system-level capabilities that have so far been reserved for Google’s own services. The practical effect: users will soon be able to trigger a rival AI assistant — not just Google Gemini — by saying something like “Hey Google,” then ask it to book a ride or find a nearby restaurant. Those changes will land in the next major Android release, expected to roll out to users around July 2027.

The data-sharing requirement is just as consequential. The Commission also ordered Google to give OpenAI and other AI chatbots with search capabilities access to the anonymized search data Google collects to improve its own ranking and relevance algorithms. Google can run a cybersecurity and data protection assessment on each competitor before handing over data, but it cannot refuse outright. The data-sharing regime starts in January 2027, with a formula to calculate what competitors should pay.

Henna Virkkunen, the EU’s technology affairs chief, framed the decision as a matter of consumer choice. “Through these measures, we expect to see more alternatives to Google Search and Google AI services such as Gemini emerge,” she said, “giving EU users access to more service options.”

Google’s response was predictably pointed. Kent Walker, the company’s chief legal officer, warned in a statement that the ruling “could weaken important privacy and security protections that millions of European users rely on.” He added that Google had proposed multiple alternatives to meet the DMA’s goals while preserving user safeguards, but those proposals were rejected.

The Commission counters that the new rules come with strict privacy and security guardrails of their own. Only competitors that meet specific standards will qualify for access to the 11 Android features.

This is the DMA’s core mechanism in action. The law designates major platform operators as “gatekeepers” and requires them to open up walled gardens that regulators say let them choke off competition. Google has been pushing back since day one, but the specification proceedings — a procedural tool the DMA introduced precisely for cases like this — leave little room for negotiation once the requirements are set in stone.

For OpenAI, the ruling is an opportunity to put its AI assistant directly onto hundreds of millions of Android devices without having to negotiate access feature by feature. For European consumers, it means the voice assistant on their phone might soon be answering to a different master. For Google, it is the kind of regulatory headache that is becoming the new normal under the DMA — and one that will take years, and likely multiple court battles, to resolve.