Britain’s competition regulator is preparing for a search market in which the service competing with Google may no longer resemble a conventional search engine, proposing that AI assistants should become eligible for the choice screens shown to Chrome and Android users.

The Competition and Markets Authority has strengthened proposed conduct requirements for Google after consultation with publishers, search providers, consumer groups, and other market participants. Under the revised plan, UK users would choose a search service when first using Chrome or setting up an Android phone and then receive another prompt every year.

AI assistants could appear on those screens if they meet the relevant technical and security criteria, placing conversational products into a distribution mechanism historically associated with traditional search engines. Providers appearing on the screen would also have to attribute publisher material clearly and accurately so users can identify and reach original sources.

The consultation remains open until 9 October, and the CMA expects to reach a final decision on the proposed user-choice requirement before the end of 2026. Google was designated as having strategic market status in general search and search advertising in October 2025, giving the regulator powers under Britain’s digital-markets regime to impose targeted conduct requirements.

The proposal follows earlier interventions around Google’s search business and AI features. Techopia examined the parallel European dispute over publisher control of AI-search content earlier this month, although the CMA’s latest intervention focuses on the separate question of which search services reach users through Google-controlled browsers and devices.

Search distribution widens beyond search engines

Choice screens are based on a relatively simple competition theory: default placement has commercial value because many users continue with whichever service appears first on a device or browser. Regulators have therefore tried to make alternative providers more visible when a default is selected rather than relying on people to change settings later.

AI assistants complicate that approach because they do not necessarily present information as a page of ranked links. A person may ask a question, request a comparison, instruct an agent to conduct research, or move from information gathering directly into another task without using the established search interface.

Competition over search can consequently happen through the user interface even when the underlying technical model is different. A conversational assistant may compete for the same attention and commercial intent as Google Search while using a different index, advertising model, retrieval architecture, or relationship with publishers.

The CMA’s revised proposal recognises that change by focusing more closely on the function performed rather than limiting the choice screen to products reproducing the established search-engine model. AI providers would not be included automatically and would still have to satisfy the regulator’s criteria.

Distribution remains commercially important because browsers and mobile operating systems sit at the entrance to enormous volumes of online activity. Google operates Chrome and Android while also running Britain’s dominant general-search service, which is why the CMA’s strategic market status process has concentrated partly on how the company’s control of those gateways can affect alternative providers.

Attribution becomes part of the remedy

The updated proposal also connects search choice with the increasingly difficult economics between AI services and publishers. Traditional web search has generally sent users towards external websites while displaying extracts and links, whereas generated answers can synthesise information from several sources without requiring a visit to any of them.

Publishers have argued that this weakens the exchange underpinning search when their material contributes to an answer but the interface reduces the traffic through which journalism and other content is financed. AI providers, meanwhile, have developed a mixture of citation, licensing, retrieval, and publisher-control mechanisms rather than one common approach.

The CMA is not attempting to settle the entire commercial dispute through this consultation, but it would make fair attribution one of the requirements applied to services gaining access to the choice screen. Users should be able to recognise where information comes from and reach the original material.

Implementation may become complicated because attribution operates differently across AI products. Some responses depend on live web retrieval and provide explicit citations, while others may combine retrieved information with model knowledge, and many products mix generated summaries with ordinary links, advertising, shopping results, or other interfaces.

A general obligation to attribute content clearly is therefore easier to state than a technical standard capable of being applied consistently across competing systems. The consultation process will have to determine how specific those obligations become before they are enforceable.

Defaults enter the AI competition battle

Opening the choice screen to AI assistants could change the commercial importance of partnerships between model developers, browser companies, handset manufacturers, and operating-system providers. AI businesses have increasingly sought placement inside software and devices because distribution can become as important as incremental model improvements once several services offer broadly comparable capabilities.

A user selecting an assistant as the default search service could generate recurring query volume without that provider first having to persuade the person to visit a separate website or install another application. Annual reselection could work in the other direction by making default status less durable and periodically returning the decision to the user.

Much will depend on the final screen design. Ordering, descriptions, eligibility criteria, the number of products displayed, and the way an AI assistant is explained beside a conventional search engine can all influence behaviour, which is why the CMA commissioned user research alongside the updated consultation.

The proposals are not yet in force, and Google’s obligations will depend on the regulator’s final decision after the consultation closes. The policy direction is nevertheless adapting to a market in which the gateway to online information may increasingly be an AI conversation rather than a list of links, forcing competition rules designed around search engines to account for products built on a different interface altogether.