The European Union has handed down a decision that could quietly reshape how AI chatbots answer questions about local businesses, and it has nothing to do with a Google algorithm update. Under the EU’s Digital Markets Act, Google has been ordered to share the data behind Google Search with rival AI chatbots, including the likes of ChatGPT.
As reported by 9to5Google, the European Commission has told Google it must, as a “gatekeeper” under the DMA, share Search data with other search companies and with AI chatbots that have search functionality, including OpenAI and Microsoft. Google has until January 2027 to make the change. A related decision also requires Google to give rival AI assistants the same level of access to Android that its own Gemini assistant currently enjoys, with a longer deadline of July 2027. Google has pushed back publicly, arguing on its own Keyword blog that the ruling “risks undermining vital privacy and security guardrails for millions of Europeans” and that private searches could end up with unfamiliar companies without proper anonymisation.
For UK small businesses, this isn’t really a story about Google’s ranking algorithm, it’s a story about where AI chatbots get their information from. Right now, tools such as ChatGPT often rely on their own, patchier web crawling and licensing deals to answer questions about local businesses, which is one reason answers can be inconsistent or out of date. If AI chatbots gain access to the same underlying Search data Google itself uses, a well-optimised website could start influencing answers given by several different AI assistants, not just Google’s own AI Overviews and AI Mode. In other words, the work that goes into being found and trusted by Google may end up counting for more, across more platforms, rather than less.
This won’t affect anything on your website tomorrow. The deadline for Google to start sharing Search data is January 2027, and how the rollout actually works in practice is still to be confirmed. But it’s a useful reminder that the fundamentals, being easy to find, clearly described and genuinely trustworthy in Google Search, are likely to become even more valuable as more AI tools plug into the same underlying data. We covered the basics of this shift in our earlier guide to SEO, AEO and GEO for small businesses, and this development is exactly the sort of thing that makes that groundwork worth doing properly now, rather than waiting until it’s mandatory.
If you’d like help making sure your website and content are set up to be found and understood correctly, whether that’s by Google or by the AI tools drawing on it, our SEO team would be happy to take a look.
