EU vs Google and Apple: Tech Giants Clash Over AI Assistant Future

The European Commission adopted two binding decisions on July 16 requiring GOOGL to give rival AI assistants and search engines the same access to Android and Google Search that it grants its own products, setting up a clash with both Google and AAPL over who controls the assistant layer on a smartphone.

The interoperability decision opens 11 Android capabilities that assistants depend on, including voice activation and the ability to act across applications. In practice a user would be able to summon a third-party assistant by voice the way "Hey Google" works today, and have it carry out tasks such as drafting an email or retrieving a flight number from an inbox during a call. That would let ChatGPT, Claude, or Perplexity plug into the same system-level hooks Gemini uses rather than running as ordinary sandboxed apps. The second decision compels Google to share anonymized query, click, ranking, and view signals from its search engine with competing providers.

The timelines are long enough to matter for modeling. The search-data measures phase in across 2026 with pricing to be finalized by January 2027, while the Android changes must ship in the next major release, Android 18, by August 2027. Google has pushed back on security grounds, arguing that system-level access for third-party assistants widens the attack surface.

Apple's position is the mirror image of the same rule. The company has cited these interoperability requirements as the reason it is withholding AI features in Europe, and Siri's AI capabilities are not expected to be available in the EU when iOS 27 launches. That leaves regulators with an awkward outcome to defend: the same mandate that could open Android to competition is being used as grounds to give European users a less capable product on iOS. How the Commission handles Apple will determine whether the assistant layer in Europe becomes genuinely contestable or simply degraded.

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