A major corporate compliance battle is unfolding between the European Union and tech giants Google and Apple over who will control the future of smartphone artificial intelligence around the world. The European Commission is currently cracking down on how these companies manage their AI assistants.
Apple and Google have dominated the smartphone market for years, with a total of around 5 billion Android smartphones and iPhones operating around the world.
As AI becomes increasingly specialized, these two prominent tech giants are enabling their AI assistants to perform tasks beyond just answering questions.
Google is currently asking other AI agents to be given expanded access to Android by July 2027. The European Commission believes that this new obligation could level the playing field for AI competition. Omdia says around 427 million iPhones and Android smartphones fall under EU regulations.
“I would say we need to take these tech companies’ arguments with a grain of salt and consider whether they have historically cared enough about privacy that a sudden decision would have an undesirable impact on them,” said Kari Schroeder, senior advisor and director of the AI and Human Rights Program.
Experts agree that giving software permission to access Apple and Google’s operating systems can put security and user privacy at risk. In fact, some argue that Google’s main motivation for pushing back on EU rules is privacy.
Apple said that although its proposed solution was rejected by the US, it will continue to work with the US.
The European Commission also highlighted important questions about privacy in the age of AI. This comes with several challenges that technology companies and regulators face in solving them.
Google said in a statement that if the agency is granted these types of powers, Samsung will be able to make important decisions.
Advances in technology have historically required some kind of privacy trade-off, such as granting location permission for more accurate recommendations.
AI systems are often trained by collecting data from the internet, which may contain your personal information without your knowledge.
