EU Digital Markets Act: Google's AI & Search Data Mandate

The European Commission has made two binding decisions about how Google must follow the Digital Markets Act. These decisions, issued on July 16, conclude a six-month dialogue with Alphabet. First, 11 Android features are now open to rival AI assistants like ChatGPT or Claude. Users can activate these by voice and run them at the operating system level, similar to how Gemini operates. Second, Google must share anonymized ranking, query, click, and view data from Google Search with competing search engines, including AI chatbot providers. This data sharing begins in January 2027, and the Android changes reach users from July 2027. Google argues these decisions weaken privacy and security for millions of Europeans and expand the attack surface of the world's most used mobile platform. This matters because granting privileged access to more parties could increase security risks for users.