The UK Competition and Markets Authority published a further consultation on 23 September on the conduct requirement that would give people a choice of search service on Android and Chrome. The update would allow AI assistants onto the screen where they meet the eligibility criteria, and would drop the criterion that a service be operated and marketed with general search as a core and central part of the service. It would also require any eligible provider’s generative AI summaries to attribute web content clearly and accurately, with a clear way back to the source. The CMA is taking views until 9 October, ahead of a final decision it expects to make by the end of the year.
Who Approves an AI Assistant for the Screen?
Google was designated as having strategic market status in general search and search advertising last October, and the CMA has already imposed conduct requirements on publisher controls, on 3 June, and on fair ranking and data portability, on 17 June. The choice-screen requirement is still a draft, and its eligibility process sits with Google, not the CMA. Paragraph 12 states that “Google shall establish a clear, fair, robust and transparent process for approving Eligible Providers every six months by reference only to the Eligibility Criteria,” with “final decisions being taken by Google in relation to whether each applicant has been approved” no later than two months after each application window opens. Google must confirm its decision to each applicant directly, and its report to the CMA on every decision “should include detailed reasoning in relation to any rejection.”
Respondents to the CMA’s earlier round flagged the obvious risk: “Google applying the criteria too restrictively.” One respondent pushed further, arguing that the CMA itself should “interpret these requirements and decide on applications, not Google.” The CMA didn’t take that suggestion. It says it “recognise[s] the experience and expertise Google has in running similar processes for existing choice screens,” and its fix is more explicit procedural rules for Google plus reporting duties, so it can “monitor how Google is running the process and applying the eligibility criteria,” rather than taking the decisions itself.
What would the CMA require of AI assistants on the choice screen?
Under the draft, an eligible AI assistant’s generative AI summaries would have to attribute web content “clearly, accurately,” and give users “a clear means to access that web content,” and the CMA leaves each provider to pick its own method for doing so. The same draft sets an error-rate bar: “an Eligible Providers’ error rate must not be significant,” with no number or named test attached to that word. Google, running the eligibility process itself, would be the one checking a provider against both conditions.
Google’s decisions on those checks would be reported to the CMA. For site owners, Google’s own reporting on its AI answers stays coarse: Search Console still tracks every link inside an AI Overview under one shared block position, not each link’s own place in it.
Circle to Search Would Stay Outside the Screen
The screen’s reach is narrower than Google’s search surface. The draft lists the Chrome address bar and, on Android, the default search app, the Search Widget and the Chrome address bar as the access points that must carry the choice, not every place a Google search can start. A few respondents, which the CMA’s footnote identifies as DuckDuckGo, Microsoft and OpenAI, argued that excluding certain access points would limit the screen’s effectiveness; the CMA gives “circle to search on Android devices” as an example. The CMA kept its list anyway, arguing it captures “the most important Google-owned access points” and that it would instead “monitor the shares of searches conducted through other access points.” ppc.land reports that “Circle to Search is out of scope.”
Where Publishers Fit
Attribution is the part of the proposal that touches publishers directly. It does not change the choice publishers already face with Google itself: Reuters and Politico were among those reconsidering how much access Google’s bots should get to their articles, and this draft does not address that; the CMA dealt with publisher controls separately, in the requirement it imposed on 3 June. The choice-screen bar is for search services applying for a slot on the screen, AI assistants included, not for what publishers do with their own access.
The consultation covers the UK only, and nothing in it is decided yet.
“This is about future-proofing the options available to people in the UK so they can choose the search service they want as these come to market.”
— Sarah Cardell, Chief Executive, CMA
Views are due by 9 October, and the CMA expects a final decision on the conduct requirement by the end of the year.