CMA wants Google to show a search choice screen every year. AI assistants can join

The Competition and Markets Authority put out a stronger proposal on 23 September. Google would have to show people a list of search services when they first set up an Android phone or open Chrome, and then again once a year.

Sarah Cardell says the way people search is changing

The CMA is the British competition regulator. Its chief executive, Sarah Cardell, said new services are creating fresh chances for competition. The authority gave Google strategic market status in October 2025. That label lets the CMA write rules for one company instead of a whole market.

ChatGPT and Perplexity can sit on Google’s own screen

The January plan covered search engines. The new one opens the list to AI assistants such as ChatGPT and Perplexity, as long as they meet technical and security rules. Those rules are not published yet. We have already reported how AI Mode cuts clicks to websites, so the size of that list matters to anyone who lives on search traffic.

Google must send people to the publisher behind each answer

Any provider on the screen has to attribute publisher content clearly. People should see where a result came from and be able to open the source. The first set of rules, in June 2026, already covered publisher controls, fair ranking and data portability. French daily Le Monde has said it saw no audience drop from AI Overviews, but most publishers report the opposite.

Responses close at 5pm on 9 October

The consultation runs until 5pm on 9 October. Two papers sit with it: a 72-page document on the requirement and a 57-page study of how people use choice screens. A final decision is due before the end of 2026. In the United States, the Google ad tech case ended without a breakup, so remedies are running on separate tracks either side of the Atlantic.

The open question is simple: how many people pick something other than Google once the screen appears. The CMA’s own research on choice screens is published with the consultation, and the answer arrives with the final decision in December.