The European Commission's DMA ruling requires Google to open structured integrations with apps like Gmail, Calendar, and Maps, as well as ambient sensor access, to third-party assistants on equal terms.
The European Commission has ruled, under the Digital Markets Act, that Google must open its apps and phone sensors to third-party AI assistants on the same terms it gives its own. As the Open Home Foundation puts it:
The decision also requires Google to open structured integrations with its own apps – Gmail, Calendar, Maps, etc – to qualified assistants, not just Gemini.
In plain terms: until now, an alternative assistant on an Android phone has been a second-class citizen. It could answer questions, but it could not reach into Gmail to draft a reply, check your Calendar before suggesting a time, or pull directions from Maps — because those deep hooks were reserved for Gemini. The DMA decision says that arrangement has to end. Google must offer "structured integrations" — documented, reliable ways for outside software to act inside its apps — to any assistant that qualifies, on equal footing.
The practical effect is that a rival assistant could do the jobs people currently hand to Gemini or Google Assistant: drafting and sending email, creating and shuffling calendar events, pulling up directions. The ruling also covers ambient sensor access, which is what makes the smart-home angle interesting. Your phone knows things about the world around it — location, motion, and so on. With equal access to that data, an alternative assistant could trigger automations, like adjusting devices at home when you leave or arrive, without Google's own assistant sitting in the middle.
This matters most if you want to replace — or just dilute — Google's assistant with something else, without losing the ability to actually act on your phone rather than merely chat. That describes two groups. The first is people who prefer a different assistant for privacy, cost, or quality reasons but have been held back by the integration gap. The second is projects like the Open Home Foundation's own work on open, self-directed assistants, where keeping control of your data and your automations is the point. If you are happy with Gemini, this ruling changes little for you directly — its significance is competitive, giving alternatives a fair chance to earn you.
Be clear-eyed: this is an idea in motion, not a feature you can switch on. The decision requires Google to build and offer these integrations, and "qualified assistants" will need to meet whatever qualification terms get defined — a phrase whose exact shape is not settled in the brief and will matter a lot in practice. There is no shipping product named here, no launch date, and no list of which sensors or app actions will be covered first. The gap between "Google must open this" and "your alternative assistant can read your email" is implementation, and that part is still ahead.
It is also worth saying what this is not: it does not make alternative assistants better at reasoning or cheaper to run. It removes a structural barrier — access — that no amount of clever engineering on the outside could fix on its own. What the alternatives do with that access is still on them.