BRUSSELS (AP) — The European Union announced two new regulations Thursday targeting Google, requiring the tech giant to share its search data and open its Android operating system to competing artificial intelligence companies.
The EU framed the new rules as a push to encourage innovation and fair competition, saying the measures will help ensure that rival AI services can access Android devices and search engines on equal footing with Google’s own products.
“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,” said Henna Virkkunen, an executive vice president at the European Commission overseeing technology matters.
The move is part of a broader regulatory effort by Brussels to limit the dominance of major technology companies — referred to as “gatekeepers” — including firms based in China and the United States. The EU’s 27 member nations have increasingly positioned themselves as global leaders in holding powerful tech platforms accountable.
Recent actions from Brussels have included pushing Google to give rival AI companies access to its Gemini AI services, requiring Apple to make its devices compatible with non-Apple products, and demanding that Meta remove what regulators called “key addictive features” such as infinite scrolling.
Kent Walker, who serves as president of global affairs for both Google and its parent company Alphabet, warned that the new requirements could have unintended consequences. He argued the rules would remove protections Google had put in place, including the screening of third-party AI assistants.
“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,” Walker said in a written statement.
U.S. President Donald Trump has previously criticized EU regulations targeting American technology companies.
In announcing the two new rules, the European Commission said it determined that AI assistants not developed by Google were unable to operate on Android phones at the same capability level as Google’s own Gemini assistant.
Under the new requirements, Google must allow users to activate competing AI assistants using voice commands and permit those assistants to carry out background tasks — such as making restaurant reservations through third-party applications.
Additionally, Google faces a deadline of January 2027 to begin sharing anonymized search data with certain competitors. The commission said this step is necessary because Google holds an enormous amount of user data that no rival company can currently match, giving it an unfair competitive advantage.
