Google, AI and Brussels: Who Sets the Digital Rules?

“If a banana tells a joke and nobody hears it, does that banana exist?” asks Banana Joe, alone in the supermarket, in an episode of The Amazing World of Gumball - the series broadcast in more than 100 countries across every continent and helping to shape the neurons of Generation Alpha, the first generation born entirely in the 21st century.

That brings me to a slightly more grown-up question: if someone opens Google this morning, types “What did the European Court decide about Google’s fine?” and gets a sufficiently useful answer in AI Mode, will they then visit the websites of Expresso, Reuters or the Financial Times to learn more?

Probably not. At that point, it is almost as though Expresso, Reuters or the Financial Times do not exist.

So this is a problem more serious than a simple existential crisis for Madeira bananas.

Google’s own data shows that the use of AI-powered search is increasing quickly and reshaping how we engage with online content. For 25 years, the model was broadly as follows: I enter a few keywords → Google displays a list of links → I click the one that interests me → advertisements appear, supporting a substantial part of the digital economy.

With AI Mode and AI Overview, the journey changes: I ask a question → an AI-generated answer appears → perhaps I open one or two links to explore the subject further, if I am particularly interested.

Most people stop at the AI response. That creates a challenge for the Internet’s traditional business model: the more comprehensive AI-generated answers become, the fewer reasons people have to click on search-engine results.

If AI answers too effectively, users are satisfied immediately. They do not open further links, websites receive less traffic, and the economic model underpinning a considerable share of digital content comes under strain. It is a domino effect that could affect the entire online ecosystem - and the news media in particular.

For years, media organisations published news online expecting people to find their links through search engines and visit their websites. For two decades, they competed largely for clicks. In the AI era, they are competing above all for trust.

Anyone seeking verified information, trying to understand a complex subject, following an investigation, or looking for different opinions on a wide range of issues will still have a place for journalism.

When tragedies occur, this is easy to understand: almost everyone values journalists’ work. On ordinary days, we are inclined to forget it.

Yet the real danger is not that AI will replace journalists. It is that journalists may no longer have the conditions needed to do their day-to-day work - work requiring time, contact with other people and, above all, critical thinking.

The media’s financial independence is essential and, in the age of AI, it will not fall from the sky.

Society must recognise the importance of safeguarding credible, professional information in an increasingly automated digital ecosystem. But how?

AI search and the future of journalism

The European Union has an important role here. Google currently continues to show links and sources in AI Overviews and AI Mode. However, nobody knows what balance will emerge between AI-generated answers and traffic sent to websites over the coming months and years.

AI is changing how we buy products, seek information, discover services and make decisions. As consumers, we adapt rapidly to technological developments. As citizens, societies, companies, institutions and governments, we cannot keep pace at the same speed.

In Portugal, the government has just introduced Amália, a Portuguese-language LLM. The initiative matters, but it still creates the impression that we are watching a film in slow motion. In technology, three years can feel like three decades - or more.

But let us return to the subject behind my banana-themed question of the day: Google versus Brussels.

Google, Brussels and the Android fine

Google has long been, by a considerable margin, the world’s most widely used search engine. Yet that dominance did not happen by chance. In 2015, the European Commission opened a formal investigation over suspicions that the company imposed conditions on Android smartphone manufacturers in order to protect and strengthen its dominance in online search.

For instance, it required Google Search, the Chrome browser and the Google Play Store app shop to be pre-installed by default.

The European Commission’s reasoning was straightforward: if almost every Android handset came with these Google services installed from the outset, it became far harder for rivals to win users.

In 2026, how many people use other search engines? Exactly.

Following that case, a record €4.34 billion fine was imposed in 2018. Google appealed, naturally.

In 2022, a European court upheld most of the investigation’s findings but cut the penalty to €4.1 billion. This Thursday, 2 July, it was reported that the Court of Justice of the European Union had confirmed that decision.

More than a decade after the investigation began, one of the largest regulatory battles between the European Union and a technology giant now comes to an end.

But why does this matter?

Because the case has become a symbol of the European strategy to curb the power of Big Tech. The ruling reinforces the European Union’s authority to intervene when it considers that a dominant platform is using its position to distort competition.

The €4.1 billion matters, but the central issue is the right to set the rules for Europe’s digital market.

For Alphabet, Google’s parent company, a fine equal to just over 1% of annual revenue is little more than an ant. What it really means is that rules may emerge requiring Google to change how it intends to distribute search, advertising and AI use - and that could have a far greater long-term economic impact.

JB: Woolf, in recent years Google has accumulated around €11 billion in antitrust fines in Europe. That amount has little weight in the company’s finances, but the scrutiny created by the Digital Markets Act is significant. Do you agree? Give me a brief answer based on credible sources, and explain in a few words what this EU strategy involves and whether it protects European citizens.

Yes, I agree.

The roughly €11 billion in antitrust fines accumulated by Google in Europe represents only a small fraction of Alphabet’s financial scale. The Android fine now confirmed (€4.1 billion) is equivalent to just over 1% of the company’s annual revenue, making its financial impact entirely manageable.

Potentially more important is the Digital Markets Act (DMA). Through this legislation, the European Union has moved beyond acting only after detecting abuses and now imposes preventative rules on the largest digital platforms, known as gatekeepers.

In brief, the EU’s strategy is to:

• prevent dominant platforms from favouring their own services;
• make it easier for competitors to enter the market;
• limit Big Tech’s power over users and businesses;
• ensure innovation is not dependent on rules set by a single platform.

The DMA’s rationale is directly connected to protecting European citizens. The aim is to provide more choice, stronger competition and less reliance on one company for access to information, apps, services or digital markets. By restricting practices that favour large platforms’ own products, the EU seeks to protect consumers, businesses and the diversity of the digital ecosystem.

Put simply: fines punish past behaviour; the DMA attempts to stop it happening again in the future.

The Digital Markets Act and Europe’s digital rules

JB: Today is a day of celebration in Brussels. Big Tech still holds enormous power, but it knows that in Europe it cannot define the digital market’s rules on its own.

Governments, businesses and citizens must now discuss these changes with the same urgency with which they are unfolding. The media is trying to do so, but it needs support. In the AI era, the wind blows hard and changes direction by the hour.

One thing is certain: while we distract ourselves with the occasional video on social media, technology giants are already testing new ways to capture and dominate our attention.