The UK Could Put AI Assistants on Google's Choice Screen: What the CMA Proposes and What to Do Before 9 October

Most people in the UK have never been asked which search service they want. The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) notes that existing Chrome users have not seen a search choice screen, and where a phone maker pre-sets Google Search on Android, the choice is made before the owner switches the phone on. On 23 September the CMA published revised proposals that would make Google ask Android and Chrome users which search service they want, with AI assistants eligible for the list. It is a consultation, not a decision. Responses close at 5pm on 9 October and the CMA expects to decide by the end of the year.

What the CMA is proposing

The proposal is a "user choice conduct requirement" for Google's general search services. The CMA's press release says Google would have to offer Android and Chrome users a choice of search service on first use, followed by a prompt every year to choose their default.

Existing Android phones are left out: the first screen and the yearly prompt apply only to new devices. The CMA narrowed the yearly prompt after Google raised technical problems with updating phones already in use. Google may also skip it for anyone who deliberately chose or changed their default in the previous six months.

The screen itself would list providers in a fully random order and make users scroll the whole list before confirming. If more than twelve services qualify, the interpretative notes expect Google to show the five most popular plus seven chosen fully at random, with a way to see the rest. Users would also be offered a "test-drive": try a provider as default for a short trial that the CMA says should not be shorter than a week, then get a notification pointing back to the default setting.

Who can be on the screen

Eligibility is where AI assistants come in. The CMA proposes to delete an earlier criterion that a service be operated and marketed with general search as a "core and central part" of what it does. Three criteria remain: adequately address the full range of general search use cases, including by searching the web; provide a functioning general search experience on the relevant access points; and be regarded as a general search service by a "significant proportion" of its UK users, which the CMA reads as a meaningful share but not a majority. The press release names ChatGPT and Perplexity as new services people use to search, and says assistants must meet technical and security requirements. Google would decide who qualifies through an approval process it must run every six months.

There is also a condition that matters to anyone who publishes content. Any provider on the screen that produces generative AI summaries must make sure web content "is attributed clearly, accurately", with a clear way for users to reach it. The CMA leaves the method to each provider.

Where this sits in the UK regime

This is the last of the four conduct requirements the CMA proposed for Google in January 2026 under the UK's strategic market status (SMS) regime. The CMA designated Google with SMS in general search and search advertising in October 2025. It then imposed a publisher conduct requirement on 3 June 2026 and fair ranking and data portability requirements on 17 June. The first version of this choice proposal went out for consultation on 28 January 2026.

If the CMA imposes it, the requirement would come into force within six months, except for the approval of eligible providers, which would come into force after one month so the list is settled before the screens appear. That is a UK mechanism. Our piece on Google's DMA search redesign in Europe covers a different obligation, results pages for hotel, travel and retail queries in the EEA. The UK proposal is about which service answers the query at all.

What it could mean for UK marketers

The point of a choice screen is that some people pick something other than the pre-set option. Nobody knows yet how many will. Even a small shift matters, because the alternatives are no longer only search engines with ad auctions like Google's.

Visibility in AI assistants

If an assistant becomes someone's default, their everyday queries go to a system that writes an answer rather than ranking ten links. Being present in those answers depends on what our guide to getting cited by AI search covers: clear, specific pages an assistant can quote and attribute. The attribution condition helps, because a provider on the screen would have to credit sources and give users a clear way to reach them.

Measurement

Traffic from assistants arrives through referrers, apps and in-app browsers that many analytics setups lump into direct or referral traffic. If defaults spread, that blind spot grows. Separate those sources before any screen appears, so you have a baseline.

Paid budget

In its provisional proportionality assessment, the CMA says Google generated £[10-20] billion of search advertising revenue from UK users in 2024. The square brackets are the CMA's: it publishes a range, not the confidential figure. It argues that if competition led prices to fall by [0-0.1]%, the benefit to advertisers would outweigh the forecast cost of the whole requirement. For one advertiser the question is narrower. If some searches move to assistants, the Google query volume your budget buys against may soften in some categories, and advertising inside assistants is still new. Watch query volumes and test small; do not move money yet.

What to do this week

1. Split AI assistant referrals into their own channel in analytics, so ChatGPT, Perplexity and similar sources stop hiding in direct and referral traffic.
2. Record a baseline now: branded and non-branded search volume, organic clicks, and assistant referrals by month, so any later shift is visible.
3. Check whether your key pages can be quoted and attributed: specific claims, named authors, visible dates and plain answers to customers' questions.
4. If you run paid search for UK clients, add query volume trends to quarterly reviews, and agree a small test budget for assistant ad placements where they exist.
5. If the choice screen affects your business, respond by email to searchsms@cma.gov.uk or through the CMA's consultation portal before 5pm on 9 October. The CMA expects to publish responses, so mark anything confidential.