EU opens 11 Android features to AI rivals. Reliability remains unsolved

The European Commission's decision removes a specific barrier: Google may no longer reserve important AndroidAndroidGoogle's operating-system platform for smartphones, tablets and other devices. https://digital-markets-act.ec.europa.eu/developer-portal/interoperability/alphabet-specification-proceedings-interoperability-ai-services_en system features for its own services or give rivals a meaningfully worse route to those features. The published measures name 11 features and require Google's interoperabilityinteroperabilityThe ability of one company's service to use and work with technical features controlled by another company. https://digital-markets-act.ec.europa.eu/developer-portal/interoperability/alphabet-specification-proceedings-interoperability-ai-services_en solutions to be equally effective in dimensions including setup, ease of use, data-transfer speed and energy consumption. https://ec.europa.eu/competition/digital_markets_act/cases/202629/DMA_100220_2683.pdf

That is a consequential change in the plumbing of mobile AI. It is not a finding that ChatGPT already matches Gemini on Android, that OpenAI will implement every available connection or that either product can reliably finish a long chain of actions. Access is the road; the assistant must still navigate it without taking a wrong turn. https://ec.europa.eu/competition/digital_markets_act/cases/202629/DMA_100220_2683.pdf; https://aclanthology.org/2026.acl-long.278.pdf

The first stage is activation. Google must let third-party services use a long press on the home button or navigation handle and receive contextual information such as the current screenshot or foreground app. It must also provide access to always-on wake-word detection, including operation while the screen is locked or battery-saver mode is active. https://ec.europa.eu/competition/digital_markets_act/cases/202629/DMA_100220_2683.pdf

The second stage is understanding. Subject to user consent and other safeguards, covered services can obtain app data that applications have chosen to share, use device context and access ambient inputs such as sensor or screen information. Without context, an assistant asked to add this flight to my calendar may not know which flight the user means. https://ec.europa.eu/competition/digital_markets_act/cases/202629/DMA_100220_2683.pdf

The third stage is action. Structured integrations can expose deliberate app functions, while screen automationscreen automationTechnology that reads an application's visible interface and operates its buttons and fields in a way resembling a human user. https://ec.europa.eu/competition/digital_markets_act/cases/202629/DMA_100220_2683.pdf can let an assistant inspect and operate an application's visible interface in a separate virtual display. System integration covers functions such as changing certain settings, controlling media, opening applications, managing alarms and interacting with messages. https://ec.europa.eu/competition/digital_markets_act/cases/202629/DMA_100220_2683.pdf

The final stage is resources. The order covers access to system-level on-device models, the implementation of third-party on-device models and background executionbackground executionThe ability of an application to continue approved work while it is not visible on the screen. https://ec.europa.eu/competition/digital_markets_act/cases/202629/DMA_100220_2683.pdf supported by processors and memory. These provisions matter because a task can fail if the operating systemoperating systemThe core software that manages a device and supplies common functions to applications. https://ec.europa.eu/competition/digital_markets_act/cases/202629/DMA_100220_2683.pdf pauses it when the user changes applications or turns off the screen. https://ec.europa.eu/competition/digital_markets_act/cases/202629/DMA_100220_2683.pdf

Equal access does not mean unrestricted access. The final measures classify centralized app-data access, context-aware intelligence, structured app integration, screen automation and some system integration as restricted features. Google may require an assistant to satisfy eligibility conditions covering functionality, user intent, model risks, privacy, security and developer practices. https://ec.europa.eu/competition/digital_markets_act/cases/202629/DMA_100220_2683.pdf

Certification cannot be entirely controlled by Google. The order requires a free program for trusted outside certification authorities and also requires Google to offer its own free certification route. Conditions must be transparent, proportionate and non-discriminatory, and Google cannot demand a higher integrity standard from rivals than it applies to itself. https://ec.europa.eu/competition/digital_markets_act/cases/202629/DMA_100220_2683.pdf

Users retain control. Google may use consent prompts, access indicators and revocation controls, provided those measures apply equally to Google's services and third parties. The order also allows strictly necessary and proportionate protections for the integrity of the operating system and device. https://ec.europa.eu/competition/digital_markets_act/cases/202629/DMA_100220_2683.pdf

MobileWorld offers a controlled look at what can happen after an assistant receives the ability to see and operate applications. The ACL 2026 paper describes a benchmarkbenchmarkA fixed collection of tasks and scoring rules used to compare systems under controlled conditions. https://aclanthology.org/2026.acl-long.278/ of 201 tasks across 20 applications, including ordinary interface tasks, tasks requiring clarification from a user and tasks combining interface actions with external tools. https://aclanthology.org/2026.acl-long.278/

For the comparison most relevant to the Android order, the researchers placed GPT-5, Gemini-3-Pro and Claude-4.5-Sonnet inside a planner-executor frameworkplanner-executor frameworkA system in which one component decides the next action and another component performs it on the device. https://aclanthology.org/2026.acl-long.278.pdf and used UI-Ins-7B as the grounding executorgrounding executorThe component that converts an instruction such as tap the Send button into an action at the correct place on the screen. https://aclanthology.org/2026.acl-long.278.pdf. Think of the frontier model as the person giving directions and the grounding executor as the hand locating the correct button. A good plan can still fail if the hand taps the wrong place, and accurate tapping cannot rescue a bad plan. https://aclanthology.org/2026.acl-long.278.pdf

The reported GUIGUIA graphical user interface, meaning the visible buttons, menus and fields through which a person operates an application. https://aclanthology.org/2026.acl-long.278.pdf-only success rates were close: 55.6% for Gemini-3-Pro, 54.0% for GPT-5 and 47.8% for Claude-4.5-Sonnet. The 1.6-percentage-point gap between the first two values is descriptive, not evidence that one consumer application is superior. The paper does not report confidence intervals for these three rates, and the systems were tested through APIs in a research framework rather than through the companies' consumer apps. https://aclanthology.org/2026.acl-long.278.pdf

The benchmark used an Android emulatoremulatorSoftware that imitates a phone on another computer so researchers can run repeatable tests. https://aclanthology.org/2026.acl-long.278.pdf and a binary score: a task counted only when its objective was fully achieved. The authors note that emulators can differ from physical phones in rendering delay, touch response and hardware behavior, while binary scoring ignores partial progress. Those choices improve repeatability but narrow what the results establish. https://aclanthology.org/2026.acl-long.278.pdf

GPT-5 in MobileWorld is not the ChatGPT Android application, and Gemini-3-Pro in the benchmark is not the consumer Gemini application. The models were called through official APIs and connected to the same research machinery. Consumer products can differ in prompts, memory, safety checks, app integrations, model routing, permissions and software updates. https://aclanthology.org/2026.acl-long.278.pdf

The EU decision does not name ChatGPT as a guaranteed beneficiary. It creates a route for third-party services that meet the relevant requirements. Reuters identified OpenAI as a likely beneficiary, but the final measure does not establish which features OpenAI will adopt or how its consumer application will perform after adoption. https://www.investing.com/news/stock-market-news/google-required-to-open-up-to-ai-search-engine-rivals-under-eumandated-changes-4795675; https://ec.europa.eu/competition/digital_markets_act/cases/202629/DMA_100220_2683.pdf

The defensible conclusion is narrower. Google-controlled access was one source of potential advantage for Gemini. The order is designed to remove that source of unequal treatment. Any remaining performance gap could come from the model's planning, the software that translates plans into taps, product design, permission choices, certification, app support, device hardware or implementation quality. https://ec.europa.eu/competition/digital_markets_act/cases/202629/DMA_100220_2683.pdf; https://aclanthology.org/2026.acl-long.278.pdf

The closest historical comparison is imperfect but useful. Google introduced a search-engine choice screen on new Android devices shipped into the European Economic AreaEuropean Economic AreaThe European Union together with Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway. https://www.efta.int/eea and the United Kingdom following the Commission's 2018 Android decision. The version studied by Francesco Decarolis, Muxin Li and Filippo Paternollo initially appeared during setup of new devices rather than across the installed base. https://www.android.com/choicescreen/; https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257%2Fmic.20230193

The researchers used difference-in-differencesdifference-in-differencesA method that estimates an intervention's effect by comparing the change in an affected group with the change in an unaffected comparison group. https://igier.unibocconi.eu/sites/default/files/media/attach/AEJMicro-2023-0193.R2.pdf?VersionId=CxvbZvgwy9RvyXb5Dp75nOxqamoaKcJI, comparing the change in affected EEA countries with changes in comparison countries. They estimated that the remedy reduced Google's overall EEA mobile-search share by less than 1 percentage pointpercentage pointThe arithmetic gap between two percentages, so a movement from 20% to 21% is a change of 1 percentage point. https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257%2Fmic.20230193. They also calculated a 95.21% Google selection rate, but that figure was implied by a model using assumptions about device activation, retirement and accumulation rather than directly observed selections. https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257%2Fmic.20230193; https://igier.unibocconi.eu/sites/default/files/media/attach/AEJMicro-2023-0193.R2.pdf?VersionId=CxvbZvgwy9RvyXb5Dp75nOxqamoaKcJI

That study does not predict the effect of the new AI order. Search engines and assistants are different products, and a setup choice screen is different from opening operating-system capabilities. Its relevant lesson is limited: removing a formal restriction does not determine adoption or competitive impact when rollout design, product quality and user behavior still differ. https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257%2Fmic.20230193

Most of the Android measures must be implemented in Android 18 and no later than 1 August 2027. The exception highlighted in the final text is concurrent always-on wake-word detection for several services, which is tied to Android 19 and an outside deadline of 1 August 2028. Reuters' same-day account summarized the user-facing rollout as beginning with the next Android iteration, but the final published measures provide the more precise deadlines. https://ec.europa.eu/competition/digital_markets_act/cases/202629/DMA_100220_2683.pdf; https://www.investing.com/news/stock-market-news/google-required-to-open-up-to-ai-search-engine-rivals-under-eumandated-changes-4795675

The rules extend beyond Google's own phones. Alphabet must take the technical, contractual and legal steps needed for compliance on covered Android devices supplied by third-party manufacturers when the relevant feature exists and the device still receives specified Android or Google system updates. Actual coverage can therefore vary with the feature and update status of each device. https://ec.europa.eu/competition/digital_markets_act/cases/202629/DMA_100220_2683.pdf

The barrier removed is discriminatory access to Android's system-level capabilities. Once the order is implemented, a qualifying rival should not lose merely because Google reserved the wake wordwake wordA spoken phrase that activates an assistant while the device is listening for it. https://ec.europa.eu/competition/digital_markets_act/cases/202629/DMA_100220_2683.pdf, contextual datacontextual dataInformation about the user's current situation on the device, such as the visible screen, open application or relevant stored data. https://ec.europa.eu/competition/digital_markets_act/cases/202629/DMA_100220_2683.pdf, app-control channel or background resources for its own services. https://ec.europa.eu/competition/digital_markets_act/cases/202629/DMA_100220_2683.pdf

What could still keep ChatGPT or another rival behind is everything that happens after access: whether the provider builds the integration, obtains user permission and certification, supports the relevant devices and applications, plans the correct sequence and verifies that the task truly finished. MobileWorld's reported rates show that even strong models sharing the same research framework often failed controlled tasks. They do not prove how the consumer apps will rank after Android 18. https://aclanthology.org/2026.acl-long.278.pdf; https://ec.europa.eu/competition/digital_markets_act/cases/202629/DMA_100220_2683.pdf