(CNN) \u2014 Google and Apple have a big leg up in the AI race: their control of billions of smartphones around the world.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s according to the European Commission, which is now cracking down on what that means for AI assistants.<\/p>\n
Apple and Google have long dominated the smartphone market, combining for roughly 5 billion active Android phones and iPhones worldwide, according to market research firm Omdia. And as AI continues to become more ubiquitous and specialized, the two tech giants are enabling their AI assistants to help complete tasks rather than just answer questions.<\/p>\n
But the European Commission wants other virtual assistants to be just as prominent on smartphones as Google\u2019s Gemini and Apple\u2019s Siri<\/a>. It\u2019s now demanding that Google<\/a> give other AI agents broader access to Android by July 2027. The EU\u2019s mandate is part of the Digital Markets Act, a set of Big Tech regulations that went into effect in the region in 2023.<\/p>\n The European Commission believes this new mandate could help level the playing field in the AI race. About 427 million iPhones and Android phones fall under EU regulation, according to Omdia.<\/p>\n Apple and Google, however, say opening up their platforms could raise serious privacy concerns. Apple announced in June<\/a> that it would not launch its new Siri AI assistant on iPhones and iPads in the EU because of the Digital Markets Act.<\/p>\n Experts agree that allowing external services to access Apple\u2019s and Google\u2019s operating systems could be dangerous for security and user privacy. But some also question whether privacy is Google\u2019s primary motivation for pushing back on the EU\u2019s rules.<\/p>\n \u201cI would say that we have to take these tech companies\u2019 arguments with a grain of salt and look at whether they\u2019ve cared about privacy up to the point where suddenly a decision was affecting them in ways they don\u2019t like,\u201d Calli Schroeder, senior counsel and director of the AI & Human Rights program at the Electronic Privacy and Information Center, told CNN.<\/p>\n Opening up Android<\/p>\n The commission wants EU Android users to have a \u201cwider and more feature-rich range of options to choose from, both when it comes to their AI services on Android and to search services,\u201d according to a press release last week.<\/p>\n EU users should be able to access other AI agents with their voice and use third-party AI agents to operate apps on their behalf on Android as they would with Gemini<\/a>, the commission says. It also wants Google to share search data with other search engines and AI chatbots so that other companies can offer a similar experience to Google Search.<\/p>\n Google must start sharing search data in January under the new mandate.<\/p>\n Google says the Android changes would pose a major security risk because it would give external apps \u201csensitive and powerful device permissions,\u201d Kent Walker, Google and Alphabet\u2019s president of global affairs, wrote in a statement on Thursday. He added that sharing search data would also \u201cweaken citizen privacy, risk business trade secrets and endanger national security.\u201d<\/p>\n