Google's Fuite en Avant? A DMA Response Becomes Harder to Avoid

Google has announced that it is launching AI Overviews and AI Mode (together with other Gemini-based services) in France. While traditional search ranks alternatives, these AI services select sources, extract their information and construct the answer. AI Overviews places that answer above the other results. AI Mode allows the search to continue as a conversation within Google. Google increasingly controls both the route to information and the answer itself.

France had so far remained outside the rollout, apparently because of the unresolved dispute over press content and publisher choice. In 2024, the Autorité de la concurrence fined Google €250 million for breaches of commitments governing negotiations with publishers. Google now refers to constructive discussions with authorities and publishers. The new framework reportedly includes a separate opt-out, specific information on impressions generated by the AI services, and remuneration for publishers whose content is used. 

It remains unclear whether the framework fully meets the Autorité de la concurrence’s expectations, and further adjustments may follow. This looks less like a small victory than a unilateral attempt by Google to create facts on the ground in France. Google appears to have concluded that its revised arrangements are sufficient under the existing commitments, leaving the Autorité to assess them after deployment. Most importantly, this leaves Google’s chosen architecture intact, including the use of Google Search as the distribution infrastructure for its own AI services. 

A more impactful, low-hanging fruit is already on the Commission’s table: Article 6(5) DMA. The Commission has a pending non-compliance proceeding concerning preferential treatment within Google Search and issued preliminary findings in March 2025. That proceeding currently concerns Google’s own vertical services. On that (too long) existing front, we may soon see the non-compliance decision, probably accompanied by a rather large fine. AI Overviews and AI Mode raise the same distribution issue on a broader scale: whether Alphabet may use Google Search to give its own answer services privileged prominence and immediate access to users. A dedicated specification proceeding might, indeed, be particularly useful here: it could define the conditions under which Alphabet may integrate and promote AI Overviews and AI Mode within Google Search. The Commission has just completed two specification proceedings concerning Google, on Android interoperability and access to Search data. Whether it is prepared to open a third will indicate how seriously it intends to treat AI integration as a contestability problem.