EU wants to force Google to share search data with competing chatbots

The European Union proposed to force Google to open part of its key search data to competitors, including next-generation search engines and AI chatbots. This is not a cosmetic measure, but an attempt to strike at the company's most valuable asset: the data on which the quality of search, the relevance of answers, and the habit of users returning specifically to the Google ecosystem depend. The essence of the initiative is that European regulators want to expand access to important information that Google currently controls.

The focus is not only on classical search engines, but also on services based on generative AI, which also need fresh, large-scale, and structured data to work well. If the proposal becomes real regulation, new players will have a chance to build more competitive products without starting from an obviously losing position compared to the dominant platform. For Google, such a scenario is sensitive for several reasons.

Search has long ceased to be just a list of links: it is the infrastructure around which advertising, web navigation, answers to everyday questions, and now AI assistants are built. The more data about queries, pages, clicks, and usefulness of results a platform accumulates, the stronger its advantage becomes. This is why access to data has become the central issue in the fight for the AI search market.

Without a comparable array of signals, it is difficult for competitors to provide answers of the same quality, especially when users expect not just a link, but a ready-made explanation, summary, or advice. For the European Union, this is a continuation of a broader line to limit the power of the largest American technology companies. In Brussels, it has long been believed that the problem of digital markets does not come down to prices for the end user.

If one platform controls access to information, ranking rules, and data about audience behavior, then the very structure of the market becomes closed to those trying to offer an alternative. Against this background, AI chatbots look like not only a new product, but also a new channel of access to information, which can either strengthen the old monopoly or create a more competitive environment—depending on who gets access to the basic data. It is also important that this is not about a secondary segment.

Generative AI increasingly intersects with search: users want to ask questions in natural language, get a compiled answer, and not spend time viewing dozens of links. But the quality of such an experience directly depends on the completeness and freshness of the data. If access to key search signals remains concentrated with a few giants, the market for AI assistants risks quickly repeating the old story of internet search, where scale itself becomes an almost insurmountable barrier to entry.

Therefore, the European initiative strikes not only at the current balance of power, but also at how the market of the coming years will be organized. At the same time, such an idea will almost certainly face strong resistance. Google may insist that forced disclosure of data affects commercially sensitive infrastructure, worsens incentives to invest in search, and creates risks to quality or security.

Moreover, in practice, there is always a complex question: what data exactly should be considered key, in what form can they be transmitted, and how not to turn regulation into a formality that sounds good but changes little for real competition. The answers to these questions will determine whether the proposal becomes a real mechanism for redistributing market power or remains a signal of Brussels' political intentions. What does this mean?

If the EU really forces Google to share critically important search data, the search and AI market in Europe could become notably more open. For startups and alternative platforms, this is a chance to catch up with leaders in product quality faster. For users—a chance to get more competing services, rather than choose between different interfaces running on the same dominant foundation.

For Google—the risk that its main advantage will gradually turn from a private asset into regulated infrastructure.