Brussels orders Google to share Android's AI sandbox with the other kids
(2026/04/28)
- Reference: 1777379412
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2026/04/28/ai_competition_in_android_phones/
- Source link:
Those pencil pushers at the European Commission are drawing up measures to ensure Google opens up its Android smartphone platform to something few users asked for – competing AI services.
Landing on Google's desk are proposed measures the Chocolate Factory may have to implement, aimed at ensuring third parties get effective access to key Android capabilities. This includes the ability for rival AI services to interact with applications and execute tasks on user devices just as easily as Google's own.
Google gives Android users a way to install unverified apps if they prove they really, really want to [1]READ MORE
The Commission sent its preliminary findings to Google as part of the proceedings it started under the Digital Markets Act (DMA) back in January. One covered Android interoperability obligations with third-party developers; a second concerned [2]access to key data held by Google Search .
Currently, the Commission claims, capabilities like sending an email, ordering food or sharing a photo are largely reserved for Google's own AI offerings on Android. It wants a facility for rival AI services to be easily activated by users via a custom "wake word" (or "woke word," if you're American), and for competing providers to offer deeply integrated experiences alongside native tools like Gemini.
As is customary, the Commission is putting its proposed measures out for a [3]public consultation , and inviting comment from interested parties until May 13.
[4]Locked-out iPhone user tells The Reg that Apple is scrambling to fix character flaw passcode bug
[5]New Android development tool designed for robots, not humans
[6]I vibe coded a feed reading web app. It was enlightening and uncomfortable
[7]Android keyboard ditches keys entirely, predicts what you mean
Teresa Ribera, the Commission's first EVP for a Clean, Just and Competitive Transition, argued that AI services are increasingly how EU citizens interact with their phones, making it critical to protect innovation across companies of all sizes.
"Today's proposed measures will give more choice to Android users about the AI services they use and integrate in their phone, including from the vast range of AI services that compete with Google's own AI," she said.
Everyone needs an AI phone. No, don't hang up, it's true [8]READ MORE
Unsurprisingly, Google disagrees, arguing the AI market is already highly competitive and that Android is interoperable by design.
"Android's open ecosystem enables AI assistants to thrive, as device makers have full autonomy to integrate and customise the AI experiences their users want," Google senior competition counsel Clare Kelly said in a statement sent to The Register.
[9]
"This unwarranted intervention would strip away that autonomy, mandate access to sensitive hardware and device permissions; unnecessarily driving up costs while undermining critical privacy and security protections for European users," she added.
[10]
Mountain View's position is that this is regulatory overreach which could leave European Android devices lacking functionality and security versus those elsewhere. But if Android is truly open by design, as Google insists, what harm could mandating openness possibly do? ®
Get our [11]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.theregister.com/2026/03/19/google_android_unverified_apps/
[2] https://www.theregister.com/2026/04/16/brussels_tells_google_to_open/
[3] https://digital-markets-act.ec.europa.eu/dma100220-consultation-proposed-measures-interoperability-google-android-article-67-dma_en
[4] https://www.theregister.com/2026/04/17/iphone_keyboard_error_fix/
[5] https://www.theregister.com/2026/04/20/google_previews_android_cli/
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2026/04/12/vibe_coding_works/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2026/03/31/taptype_android_touch_keyboard/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2025/09/09/gartner_ai_phone/
[9] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2afDZpFL8mRhzNef3MtD1lQAAAdI&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[10] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44afDZpFL8mRhzNef3MtD1lQAAAdI&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[11] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Landing on Google's desk are proposed measures the Chocolate Factory may have to implement, aimed at ensuring third parties get effective access to key Android capabilities. This includes the ability for rival AI services to interact with applications and execute tasks on user devices just as easily as Google's own.
Google gives Android users a way to install unverified apps if they prove they really, really want to [1]READ MORE
The Commission sent its preliminary findings to Google as part of the proceedings it started under the Digital Markets Act (DMA) back in January. One covered Android interoperability obligations with third-party developers; a second concerned [2]access to key data held by Google Search .
Currently, the Commission claims, capabilities like sending an email, ordering food or sharing a photo are largely reserved for Google's own AI offerings on Android. It wants a facility for rival AI services to be easily activated by users via a custom "wake word" (or "woke word," if you're American), and for competing providers to offer deeply integrated experiences alongside native tools like Gemini.
As is customary, the Commission is putting its proposed measures out for a [3]public consultation , and inviting comment from interested parties until May 13.
[4]Locked-out iPhone user tells The Reg that Apple is scrambling to fix character flaw passcode bug
[5]New Android development tool designed for robots, not humans
[6]I vibe coded a feed reading web app. It was enlightening and uncomfortable
[7]Android keyboard ditches keys entirely, predicts what you mean
Teresa Ribera, the Commission's first EVP for a Clean, Just and Competitive Transition, argued that AI services are increasingly how EU citizens interact with their phones, making it critical to protect innovation across companies of all sizes.
"Today's proposed measures will give more choice to Android users about the AI services they use and integrate in their phone, including from the vast range of AI services that compete with Google's own AI," she said.
Everyone needs an AI phone. No, don't hang up, it's true [8]READ MORE
Unsurprisingly, Google disagrees, arguing the AI market is already highly competitive and that Android is interoperable by design.
"Android's open ecosystem enables AI assistants to thrive, as device makers have full autonomy to integrate and customise the AI experiences their users want," Google senior competition counsel Clare Kelly said in a statement sent to The Register.
[9]
"This unwarranted intervention would strip away that autonomy, mandate access to sensitive hardware and device permissions; unnecessarily driving up costs while undermining critical privacy and security protections for European users," she added.
[10]
Mountain View's position is that this is regulatory overreach which could leave European Android devices lacking functionality and security versus those elsewhere. But if Android is truly open by design, as Google insists, what harm could mandating openness possibly do? ®
Get our [11]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.theregister.com/2026/03/19/google_android_unverified_apps/
[2] https://www.theregister.com/2026/04/16/brussels_tells_google_to_open/
[3] https://digital-markets-act.ec.europa.eu/dma100220-consultation-proposed-measures-interoperability-google-android-article-67-dma_en
[4] https://www.theregister.com/2026/04/17/iphone_keyboard_error_fix/
[5] https://www.theregister.com/2026/04/20/google_previews_android_cli/
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2026/04/12/vibe_coding_works/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2026/03/31/taptype_android_touch_keyboard/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2025/09/09/gartner_ai_phone/
[9] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2afDZpFL8mRhzNef3MtD1lQAAAdI&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[10] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44afDZpFL8mRhzNef3MtD1lQAAAdI&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[11] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Anonymous Coward
But the UK will have to suck up whatever the US wants ?
Not being in the EU and all that.
Portabililty Between Models
This article opens the door to a dimension of AI adoption that I haven't really seen discussed yet: portability.
Back in the day, organisations like ANSI (the American National Standards Institute) developed portability standards for technology that covered programming languages, including COBOL, FORTRAN and even SQL. [ And yes, I appreciate that these are older languages, but COBOL and SQL, in particular, remain two of the most widely adopted languages in computing today.
The thing is, we have no way of knowing which of the current AI companies [if, indeed, any of them] will establish the most capable or effective solution. We don't know if the companies will continue in business, or be bought out, or sued out of existence if something goes wrong.
What we do know is that companies that use technology in general - everything from banks to healthcare to engineering - is rushing to experiment with and adopt AI-powered solutions, even if this largely seems driven by FOMO (the Fear Of Missing Out).
But the problems will start to manifest in maybe a year or two, when the AI race starts to solidify around leading players and we start to see major rounds of consolidation, with smaller and less effective players being consumed or simply fading to insignificance. But what of companies that invest in those doomed providers?
The thing about a programming language like COBOL is that it is relatively simply to port it between systems [as long as it sticks to an external standard, like ANSI]. We have no such collaboration happening in the AI space right now. What happens if you're a downstream consumer of i.e. Anthropic as a major part of your business process and then Anthropic is bought or our withers and dies.
If you've experimented with AI at all in a business setting you quickly learn that it is a brutal, Garbage-In/Garbage-Out paradigm and that crafting really good prompts is essential to getting good, efficient results. Once you have effectively hard-coded that in to other software by means of an API, things get more complex still.
I dare say it will come... but it would be interesting to ask companies who are rushing to adopt AI and just ask them what their contingency plans are if the AI provider they are partnering with is toast within the next 12-18 months.
I have a hunch that not many of them will have an answer for that.