The Digital Markets Act (DMA), Regulation (EU) 2022/1925, is a European Union regulation that imposes conduct obligations on large online platforms designated as "gatekeepers" for core platform services such as search, app stores, operating systems, browsers, and messaging (Source: eur-lex.europa.eu). Adopted on September 14, 2022 and applicable from May 2, 2023, the regulation was written before the general-purpose AI wave, but by 2026 had become one of the EU's principal instruments for regulating competition in AI services: on July 16, 2026 the European Commission issued two binding specification decisions requiring Google to give rival AI assistants access to Android features equal to its own Gemini and to share Google Search data with third-party search engines and AI chatbots (Source: digital-markets-act.ec.europa.eu).
Status and timeline
The regulation entered into force on November 1, 2022 and became applicable on May 2, 2023. On September 6, 2023 the Commission designated the first six gatekeepers — Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, ByteDance, Meta, and Microsoft — covering 22 core platform services, with compliance obligations applying from March 7, 2024; Booking.com was added as a gatekeeper in 2024 (Source: digital-markets-act.ec.europa.eu). On June 25, 2026 the Commission said the cloud-computing units of Amazon and Microsoft should also fall under gatekeeper obligations, extending the framework toward core AI-infrastructure providers (Source: reuters.com).
Scope and key provisions
Gatekeeper designation rests on quantitative presumptions — annual EU turnover of at least €7.5 billion or a market capitalization of at least €75 billion, together with at least 45 million monthly active EU end users and 10,000 yearly active EU business users of a core platform service (Regulation (EU) 2022/1925 — Digital Markets Act (primary text)). Designated gatekeepers face per-service obligations that include prohibitions on self-preferencing in ranking, restrictions on combining personal data across services without consent, interoperability requirements for messaging and (via specification) other services, data-portability and business-user data-access rights, and requirements to permit third-party app stores and sideloading. Non-compliance can draw fines of up to 10% of worldwide annual turnover, rising to 20% for repeat infringements (Regulation (EU) 2022/1925 — Digital Markets Act (primary text)).
Two features of the primary text determine how the regime reaches AI services. First, Article 2(2) lists virtual assistants, operating systems, web browsers, and cloud computing services among the ten core platform service categories, with a virtual assistant defined at Article 2(12) as "software that can process demands, tasks or questions, including those based on audio, visual, written input, gestures or motions, and that, based on those demands, tasks or questions, provides access to other services or controls connected physical devices" — a definition predating general-purpose assistants but broad enough to cover them. Second, the regulation splits obligations between Article 5, which is self-executing, and Article 6, which is "susceptible of being further specified under Article 8," giving the Commission the power to issue firm- and service-specific specification decisions — the mechanism used in July 2026 (Regulation (EU) 2022/1925 — Digital Markets Act (primary text)).
Designation itself places the burden toward inclusion: an undertaking meeting the thresholds must notify within two months, and if it does not and fails to answer an information request, "the Commission shall still be entitled to designate that undertaking as a gatekeeper, based on information available to the Commission." Rebuttal arguments may be rejected without further procedure where they "do not manifestly call into question the presumptions." Article 6(2) bars use of non-public business-user data in competition with those users, expressly including "click, search, view and voice data," and Article 6(3) requires that users be able to uninstall any application except those "essential for the functioning of the operating system or of the device." A separate 1% turnover ceiling applies to procedural breaches, among them failure "to provide access to data, algorithms or information about testing" (Regulation (EU) 2022/1925 — Digital Markets Act (primary text)).
Enforcement
The Commission issued its first non-compliance decisions on April 23, 2025, fining Apple €500 million for breaching the anti-steering obligation governing app-store communications with users, and Meta €200 million over its binary "consent or pay" model for Facebook and Instagram, which the Commission found failed the requirement to offer a service using less personal data (Source: digital-markets-act.ec.europa.eu). On July 23, 2026 the Commission fined Google €890 million in two non-compliance decisions — €460 million for self-preferencing its own shopping, hotels, transport, and sports services in Search results, and €430 million for restricting app developers from steering users to cheaper channels outside Google Play — and ordered Google to end the non-compliance, with press reports indicating search-results changes within 60 days (Source: digital-markets-act.ec.europa.eu; cnbc.com; searchengineland.com). On April 30, 2026 the European Parliament adopted a resolution on DMA enforcement (2026/2596(RSP)) calling for closer scrutiny of AI-driven search tools — Google AI Overviews, Gemini, Apple Siri, Meta WhatsApp AI, Amazon Rufus, and Microsoft Copilot — and demanding complementarity between the DMA, the Data Act, and the AI Act (Source: techieray.substack.com).
Public enforcement has begun to draw private follow-on litigation. Reuters reported on July 28, 2026 that smaller European rivals were preparing damages claims against Google following the July 23 decisions, per lawyers and litigation financiers it surveyed. The same reporting put Google's accumulated EU-led fines at €10.4 billion over the past decade, and noted that a Stockholm court ordered the company in July 2026 to pay roughly $1.97 billion including interest in the PriceRunner case. Google said the claims have no merit (Source: reuters.com). Reuters and other coverage describe the July 23 decisions in dollar terms as a record $1 billion fine; the Commission's own figure is €890 million across the two decisions. See AI Antitrust.
Application to AI services
Through 2026 the Commission moved the DMA into AI competition disputes on several fronts:
- Android and rival AI assistants. On April 27, 2026 the Commission unveiled proposals to open Android to rivals' AI services; Google called the measures "unwarranted intervention" (Source: bloomberg.com). The first of the July 16, 2026 specification decisions makes this binding: competitors' AI assistants receive access to Android functionality equal to Gemini's, so that users can activate a preferred assistant by voice command and delegate in-app tasks such as booking a taxi or drafting chat replies, with safeguards for privacy, device integrity, and security (Source: digital-markets-act.ec.europa.eu). Reporting put the opening at 11 Android features, applying from the next Android version, scheduled for July 2027; The Verge reported implementation due by June 2027, with Google receiving a roughly yearlong grace period during which its own assistant stays on the EU market (Source: cnbc.com; theverge.com). The Commission's specification proceeding lists the 11 features — including hotword invocation, screen automation, and on-device Gemini Nano models — to be opened to third-party AI services free of charge, starting with Android 18 by August 2027 (Source: digital-markets-act.ec.europa.eu). Executive Vice President Henna Virkkunen said the aim is "fair competition in the markets for AI assistants on Android devices & search engines"; Google president of global affairs Kent Walker responded that the decisions "risk undermining vital privacy and security guardrails" (Source: theverge.com). The same coverage noted that Apple, by contrast, must make Siri's AI features DMA-compliant before launching them in the EU (Source: theverge.com).
- Search data for AI chatbots. The second July 16 decision specifies how Google must share search data: AI chatbots offering search functionalities are eligible recipients, and Google must share, subject to anonymisation, the same data it collects to optimise its own search services. The decision sets a multi-layered anonymisation method developed in line with the draft Joint Guidelines of the Commission and the European Data Protection Board on the DMA-GDPR interplay, allows Google a pre-sharing cyber-security and data-protection risk assessment, and lays out a pricing formula and access process (Source: digital-markets-act.ec.europa.eu; ec.europa.eu). Reporting indicated data sharing would begin in January 2027, with OpenAI among the eligible recipients (Source: cnbc.com).
- WhatsApp and rival chatbots. On June 9, 2026 the Commission ordered Meta to give rival AI chatbots free access to WhatsApp while it investigates Meta's October 2025 ban on third-party chatbots in the WhatsApp Business API; Meta said it plans to appeal (Source: reuters.com).
- Apple Siri AI. Apple said on June 9, 2026 that upgraded Siri AI features would not ship in the EU indefinitely, blaming EU tech rules; the Commission responded that the DMA had never blocked the launch and that Apple had sought a blanket 18-month exemption before choosing not to launch (Source: reuters.com). Commission tech chief Henna Virkkunen said at Web Summit Rio on June 12, 2026 that "nothing" in the DMA blocks Apple from launching Siri AI in Europe (Source: axios.com).
Relationships
- related: EU AI Act (Regulation 2024/1689) (companion horizontal EU digital regulation; the April 2026 EP resolution demands complementarity), European Data Protection Board (EDPB) (joint DMA-GDPR guidelines underpinning the search-data anonymisation method), AI Antitrust (the competition-policy debate the DMA operationalizes in the EU), Agent Supply Archetypes (BYO/Bowling-Shoe × Horizontal/Vertical) (mandated interoperability bearing on AI-agent competition), Apple, Meta AI, Amazon, Microsoft, Google DeepMind (designated gatekeepers or gatekeeper parents subject to the decisions described here)