Google and Apple’s EU AI Warnings Echo Meta’s WhatsApp Fight

The European Commission ordered Google on July 16 to open eleven Android features it has kept for Gemini to rival AI assistants such as ChatGPT and Claude, with most of the changes required by 2027. Apple faces a parallel demand and has already chosen to keep its redesigned Siri AI out of the European Union rather than accept the bloc’s terms.

Both companies call the mandate a security threat. Brussels heard nearly the same warning from Meta seven months earlier, over WhatsApp, and it did not change the commission’s mind then either.

Brussels Rewrites Android’s AI Rules

The order landed as two separate binding decisions, both adopted the same day and enforceable immediately. Regulators opened the underlying case, formally called a specification proceeding, on January 27, 2026, and closed it in under six months.

The first decision applies the Digital Markets Act’s Article 6(7) interoperability rule to Android. It covers eleven Android features built around four capabilities: how an assistant gets invoked, what context it can read from the screen and sensors, what actions it can take inside other apps, and what device resources it can call on. Right now, only Gemini gets the full set. The commission says the goal is letting Europeans activate a rival assistant with a voice command the same way “Hey Google” works today, then hand it tasks like booking a taxi or drafting a reply inside a chat app.

Android runs on around 60% of European mobile users’ devices, the commission wrote in its own decision, which is why control over Gemini’s default status matters well beyond one product. Google can charge for the shared search data, but the pricing formula is capped close to the cost of preparing it plus a reasonable margin.

Why Is Apple Fighting This Differently Than Google?

Google is complying while protesting loudly in public. Apple has gone further, pulling its overhauled Siri AI from the EU market entirely rather than accept the bloc’s terms, after regulators rejected a fix Apple says it offered. Same law, two very different bets.

Kent Walker, Google and Alphabet’s president of global affairs, wrote in a statement the day the decisions landed that the changes would hand outside apps “sensitive and powerful device permissions” that would “weaken citizen privacy, risk business trade secrets and endanger national security.” Sameer Samat, Google’s Android president, posted on X the next day that the commission “is on the wrong track,” arguing users can already switch assistants if they want to.

Apple’s complaint runs more specific. The company says the rules would force it to give outside developers a level of access it considers reckless.

read on a user’s device all of their messages and emails, see every phone call they make or receive, track every app that they use, scan all of their photos, look at their files and calendar events, log all of their passwords, and more

That is how Apple, in comments gathered by Chamber of Progress, a tech industry policy group, described what the interoperability rules would allow. Apple says it offered its own fix, a system it calls a Trusted System Agent, paired with an 18 month phased rollout that would have let the new Siri AI launch in Europe while stronger safeguards were built. According to Apple, the commission said no.

So when Apple unveiled its redesigned, conversational Siri AI at its Worldwide Developers Conference on June 8, it confirmed in the same breath that EU customers would not get it. iPhone owners in Europe can already set a non-Siri assistant as their default under iOS 26.2, a stopgap Apple built before deciding to withhold the bigger release altogether.

Calli Schroeder, senior counsel and director of the AI and Human Rights program at the Electronic Privacy Information Center, questioned that framing when she spoke with CNN, saying tech companies’ arguments deserve “a grain of salt” given how selectively the concern tends to surface.

OpenAI Stands to Gain the Most

ChatGPT is already installed on about 30% of European smartphones, according to Omdia, a market research firm, well before any of the new access rules take effect.

Runar Bjorhovde, an analyst at Omdia, put the stakes plainly in emailed comments to CNN: “The question is what the implications for Google or the consumer might be if the user can utilize ChatGPT to book an Uber, completely bypassing the need to engage with Android.”

• OpenAI – ChatGPT already sits on roughly 30% of EU phones and is named explicitly as eligible for Google’s anonymized search data under the new terms.
• Anthropic and Perplexity – Both are named as qualifying rivals that could request the same wake word and screen access Gemini has today.
• Samsung and other Android device makers – Google has said phone makers, not Google alone, will help vet which outside assistants get sensitive permissions.
• 427 million EU device owners – Per Omdia, they gain a legal right to switch assistants at the operating system level, while losing access to Apple’s new Siri AI in the meantime.

Apple and Google combine for roughly 5 billion active iPhones and Android phones worldwide, Omdia estimates, which is the scale that makes Brussels treat the assistant layer as a competition problem rather than a feature dispute.

Meta Ran This Playbook on WhatsApp First

Google and Apple are not the first gatekeepers to tell Brussels that opening up would break something. Meta made nearly the same case about WhatsApp less than a year ago, and lost the argument in stages.

Meta’s WhatsApp Business Solution began blocking outside AI providers under a policy the company announced in October 2025, enforced from January 15, 2026, cutting off ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot and other assistants. The commission responded by opening a formal antitrust investigation into Meta’s WhatsApp policy toward AI rivals. Meta’s first offer, a fee of $0.0625 per message, drew objections from regulators who called it prohibitive, and the company returned in May with a revised plan built around free access up to a usage cap.

Apple already knows what it costs to lose one of these fights outright. In April 2025, the commission fined the company 500 million euros (about $540 million) for breaking the DMA’s App Store steering rules, its first DMA penalty. Google has its own history here too. The company recently exhausted its last legal appeal against a European antitrust fine of more than four billion dollars over how it bundled apps on Android, a case that predates generative AI by years, HotHardware reported.

The Legal Runway Just Ran Out for Google

Google had been hoping the courts might buy it time. That option closed on July 9, when the EU General Court dismissed all three of Apple’s separate challenges to its own gatekeeper status. The ruling set what competition lawyers are now calling the sequencing rule: a gatekeeper cannot seek an injunction against a DMA obligation until the commission actually issues one. A week later, the commission issued both Android decisions anyway, and they took legal effect immediately.

1. January 27, 2026: The commission opens two specification proceedings against Google, one on Android interoperability, one on search data sharing.
2. June 8, 2026: Apple unveils its redesigned Siri AI at WWDC and confirms EU customers will not get it.
3. July 9, 2026: The EU General Court dismisses Apple’s gatekeeper challenges, closing off Google’s path to a pre-emptive injunction.
4. July 16, 2026: The commission adopts both binding decisions, effective immediately.
5. January 2027: Google must finalize and communicate its pricing for shared search data.
6. August 1, 2027: Most interoperability requirements must ship with Android 18.
7. August 1, 2028: Concurrent multi assistant wake word support arrives with Android 19.

The commission’s own first formal review of the DMA, published in April, concluded the law remains fit for purpose after two years in force. Google’s next checkpoint comes in January 2027, when it has to tell rival developers exactly what it will charge them for search data access.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the Digital Markets Act, and why does it apply to Google and Apple?

The Digital Markets Act is an EU law that entered into force in November 2022 and designates the largest tech platforms, including Alphabet, Apple, Amazon, Meta, Microsoft and ByteDance, as gatekeepers subject to strict fairness and interoperability rules. Companies qualify once they pass set thresholds for EU turnover and monthly users, under an EU framework detailing fines of up to 10% of global turnover for violations.

Will Apple’s new Siri AI ever launch in the EU?

Apple has not given a date. The company says it proposed a phased, 18 month rollout of its Trusted System Agent that would have let Siri AI launch in Europe while stronger safeguards were built, and that the commission rejected it. Until a deal is reached, EU iPhone owners can only set a third-party assistant as their default under iOS 26.2, without the deeper Siri AI features available elsewhere.

What happens if Google misses its 2027 deadline?

A non-compliance finding under the DMA can bring fines of up to 10% of a company’s total worldwide annual turnover, rising to 20% for a repeat violation within eight years, plus daily penalty payments worth up to 5% of average daily turnover if a gatekeeper drags out a fix.

Do all rival AI assistants automatically qualify for the new access?

No. Google still gets to vet whether a requesting company meets baseline cybersecurity and data protection standards before granting deeper Android access, and it cannot demand an assistant be set as default before it qualifies. Similar scrutiny applies to search data sharing, which stays anonymized and priced rather than handed over freely to anyone who asks.

Can Android users already switch away from Gemini today?

Partly. Users can already choose a different assistant app, which is the point Samat made when he pushed back on the ruling, but rival assistants cannot yet use the wake word, home button invocation or screen reading access that make Gemini feel built into the phone rather than bolted on. That gap closes once Android 18 ships.