Google challenges EU plan to open Android AI assistant access and share Search data

Google is challenging European Commission Digital Markets Act decisions that would force changes to both Android and Google Search, opening a new court fight over how far the EU can push the company to make core services available to rivals.

Android Authority reported that Google is appealing the Commission’s decisions to the EU’s General Court in Luxembourg, where the dispute will now be considered.

What the EU wants changed on Android

The Commission wants rival AI assistants to gain deeper access to Android, rather than leaving some of those advantages exclusive to Google’s Gemini, Android Authority reports. Under that timeline, within 12 months of the Commission’s July decision, Google would have to let users activate their preferred AI assistant with voice commands.

That could eventually mean Android users in Europe are able to choose a non-Google assistant and summon it the same way they would a default Google option, though the current dispute is over the Commission’s requirements themselves rather than a launched user feature.

The search data dispute

A separate part of the case centers on Google Search. By January 2027, the Commission wants Google to give eligible rival search providers access to some of the search data it collects at scale, according to Android Authority.

The broader idea, as described in that report, is to help smaller search competitors gain access to information that could improve their services as AI chatbots and traditional search products increasingly overlap.

Google is arguing that this part of the plan raises serious privacy concerns. Oliver Bethell, Google’s senior director of competition, said users bring highly personal questions to Search, including medical and relationship concerns, and argued that sharing those queries without adequate safeguards could cause irreversible harm to privacy, per Android Authority.

For now, the fight is over the Commission’s compliance demands under the DMA, not a finding in this instance that Google has violated them. The next step is Google’s challenge before the EU’s General Court in Luxembourg.