EU’s Android AI Mandate Could Leave Europeans With Less Choice
BRUSSELS (16 July 2026) — The European Commission’s decision to require Google to give rival AI assistants the same deep access to Android as its Gemini service could leave Europeans with fewer assistants, not more, according to Dirk Auer, director of competition policy at the International Center for Law & Economics (ICLE).
The problem, Auer argues, is not the Digital Markets Act (DMA) itself, but the Commission’s uncompromising interpretation of it.
Under legally binding decisions issued today, Google must, from July 2027, give third-party assistants access to Android devices on terms ‘equally effective’ to those available to Gemini. A companion decision requires Google to share anonymised search data with rivals, including AI chatbots, from January 2027.
‘There is a difference between letting users choose another default assistant and forcing Google to give every rival the deep system access it developed for Gemini’, Auer said. ‘Apple faced a similar demand and kept Siri AI off European iPhones entirely. If Brussels makes deep AI integration untenable, Google may delay or diminish Gemini in Europe. Users would get less, not more’.
The Commission has also misread the competitive landscape, Auer said. Google remains a challenger in AI assistants: ChatGPT accounts for roughly 70 per cent of EU chatbot use, while Anthropic has grown faster than any rival over the past year. Gemini’s chief advantage is its integration across Google’s services.
‘The decision strips the trailing player of its main differentiator and favours firms that never needed one’, Auer said. ‘That is a strange way to promote competition’.
The Commission says its measures include robust safeguards. But giving AI agents broad access to screens, taps, and transactions creates inherent risks, including surveillance, credential theft, and unauthorised purchases. Those dangers cannot be solved simply by ordering Google to add safeguards after the fact.
Auer continued:
‘The problem is not the DMA—it is the Commission’s reading of it. Article 6(7) expressly permits “strictly necessary and proportionate” security measures. The Commission’s demand for “objective and verifiable evidence” of harm before Google may impose restrictions appears nowhere in the statute. Brussels has taken a two-sided legal text and enforced only one side’.
The consequences are no longer hypothetical. Gemini, AI Overviews, Threads, and Siri AI have all been delayed or withheld in Europe amid uncertainty over DMA obligations. This pattern of defensive levelling down risks leaving European users with less capable products.
To arrange an interview with Auer, contact Jim Fellinger at [email protected].
About ICLE
The International Center for Law & Economics is a nonprofit, nonpartisan research center working with a roster of more than one-hundred academic affiliates and research centers from around the globe. ICLE scholars promote the use of law and economics methodologies to inform public policy debates.