On July 16, the European Commission issued two binding measures against Google under the Digital Markets Act: one forces Android to give competing AI assistants equal access to key features, the other forces Google to share anonymized search data, including query, click, and ranking signals, with rival search engines. The practical gap the ruling addresses is stark: download ChatGPT or Claude on an Android phone today and you get an app; use Gemini and you get an operating system feature that can hear a wake word, hold down the home button, read your screen, and take actions inside other apps. The specification decisions spell out exactly what Google must open: eleven defined Android features for third-party AI providers, most by the next major Android release, Android 18, and by August 1, 2027 at the latest, and anonymized Google Search data for rival search engines and AI chatbots on fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory terms from January 2027.
Google Search holds approximately 95 percent of the EU search market, and that concentration produces a dataset of query signals, click patterns, and ranking feedback that no rival can accumulate at comparable depth, because the dataset is both a product of dominance and a structural barrier to challenging it. The Commission had opened two parallel specification proceedings on January 27, 2026, each targeting a different obligation under the DMA. The July 16 decisions do not impose fines; under the DMA, specification proceedings clarify how a gatekeeper must comply with an obligation rather than determine whether it violated the law. The search data decision sets out a multi-layered method to anonymize the shared data, developed in close collaboration with internal and external privacy experts, and it allows Google to assess, before sharing any data, whether sharing with a specific third party poses serious cybersecurity and data protection risks.
Google's president of global affairs, Kent Walker, wrote on July 16 that the decisions "risk undermining vital privacy and security guardrails for millions of Europeans" and that the company had "repeatedly offered solutions to safeguard users while satisfying the DMA's goals, but these rulings discount extensive evidence of user harm." According to Google, its own researchers managed to break the anonymization planned by EU decision-makers in less than two hours. Although the decisions are legally binding, they do not determine whether Google has breached the DMA or impose financial penalties, and they remain subject to judicial review.
The ruling sets a global precedent for how governments can force open AI ecosystems. ChatGPT is already on roughly 30 percent of EU smartphones and stands to gain the most from the new rules. The Commission's ruling lands at a moment when the AI competition landscape in Europe is in flux; a handful of European AI companies, including Mistral, which operates out of Paris, have positioned themselves as alternatives to US-dominated models, and the data-sharing and open-platform requirements could, in principle, help them compete. The Apple parallel is an immediate caution: Apple introduced Siri AI at WWDC 2026 on June 8, then published a second announcement confirming that, due to the Digital Markets Act, Siri AI would not ship in the European Union on iOS 27 or iPadOS 27. The political backdrop has added further tension, with EU Competition Commissioner Teresa Ribera previously accusing the Trump administration of pressuring Brussels to soften its tech regulations, underscoring how closely watched these enforcement actions have become outside the EU.
If Google follows Apple's lead and withholds features rather than complies, the regulation intended to give Europeans more AI choice could end up giving them less.