The UK Competition and Markets Authority proposed revised search-choice requirements for Google on 23 September under the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024. Its proposals for Android and Chrome would let qualifying AI assistants appear alongside other search services when people choose a default. The CMA is consulting before deciding whether to impose the user choice conduct requirement.
Key points
- Google would offer a search choice when a UK customer first uses an Android phone or opens Chrome, with another prompt every year.
- The proposed screen could carry up to 12 providers, including AI assistants that satisfy eligibility requirements.
- Providers on the screen would have to attribute publishers’ material so users could identify and reach its source.
- The CMA is taking comments until 9 October and expects a final decision by the end of 2026.
Google’s proposed screen could list up to 12 providers
The proposal would put the choice in front of customers at two points: when they first use an Android phone and when they first open Chrome. Google would then prompt them once a year to select the provider they want as their default. UK users already have a choice of search provider on Android and Chrome, Engadget reported, but the proposed yearly prompt would be new.
The revised screen could contain up to 12 search providers, PPC Land reported. Its account of the 71-page consultation also describes a proposed test-drive lasting at least one week before a user commits to a provider. A place on the screen would therefore be an opportunity to seek a default selection, subject to the CMA’s proposed eligibility rules, rather than an automatic designation as a user’s preferred service.
The CMA has revised more than the list of eligible services. The changes cover the process Google would use to assess applicants, the test-drive and annual prompt, the device-level default setting and a search-default API. Those details determine how a customer’s selection would be made and revisited, as well as which providers could be offered for selection.
AI assistants enter the CMA’s search test
Under the revised proposal, an AI assistant could appear if it meets the relevant criteria, including technical and security requirements. The CMA named ChatGPT and Perplexity as examples of newer services people use to find information. The proposal concerns their possible inclusion as search choices on Google’s screens; it does not give every AI assistant a place regardless of whether it qualifies.
The boundary was contested in the first consultation. Four respondents, including publisher groups, argued that AI services should be kept off a search screen because Google’s Gemini assistant was outside the scope of the CMA’s designation. Two respondents raised doubts about whether AI services could handle navigational queries. OpenAI argued instead that the eligibility rules needed to account for search services using AI models and interfaces, PPC Land reported.
The CMA’s position is that the distinction between AI-based services and other search services has become less clear. An AI component or interface alone should not bar a provider from consideration, it said. The regulator has also distinguished the treatment of Gemini in its earlier designation from a rule about which other services may qualify for a search choice screen.
This is the second consultation on the user choice measure. The CMA placed the measure in a package advanced in early 2026, following its October 2025 strategic market status designation of Google for general search and search advertising services. It returned to the choice-screen proposal amid changes to Google Search and growing use of AI assistants for search. Google moved its conversational search surface to Gemini 3.5 Flash at its I/O conference on 19 May, according to PPC Land.
Publisher attribution joins Google’s existing requirements
Google would also have to ensure that providers appearing on the choice screens fairly attribute publisher content when their services are used. The CMA describes the intended result in practical terms: people should be able to tell where material in a result came from and reach the source content. That condition would apply to qualifying providers on the screen, including an AI assistant selected as a search service.
The proposed choice measure sits alongside requirements the CMA has already imposed following Google’s strategic market status designation. It imposed publisher controls on 3 June 2026, then fair-ranking and data-portability requirements on 17 June. User choice is the part of that package undergoing another consultation. The revisions concern who may compete for a default position and how that position is offered to customers.
The CMA will accept views on the revised proposals until 9 October and expects to decide whether to impose the user choice conduct requirement by the end of 2026.
