BRUSSELS — Apple has said it would not ship its overhauled AI assistant on its devices in the EU, pinning the holdout squarely on Europe’s Big Tech market dominance rules.
The iPhone maker on Monday announced its redesigned AI-enabled assistant, branded Siri AI, at its developer conference in Cupertino, California.
Shortly afterwards, Apple confirmed that EU users will not get Siri AI on iPhones and iPads when its latest update ships this fall, with no timeline for when or whether that changes. Mac users in the bloc will still get it, and the old version of Siri stays in place, Apple said in a blog post.
The EU’s Digital Markets Act requires designated gatekeepers like Apple to let rival services interoperate with their platforms on fair terms.
Apple said that, under regulators’ “extreme interpretation” of those rules, any competing AI assistant would have to be granted the same deep system reach as Siri AI, including the ability to read and send messages, make purchases and act across apps.
The Commission has repeatedly rejected Apple’s privacy-and-security arguments as a pretext for locking out competitors.
“We’re deeply disappointed that our EU users won’t have Siri AI on iPhone or iPad,” said Craig Federighi, Apple’s software engineering chief, adding that the company hopes to bring it to the bloc eventually and will keep engaging with regulators.
It’s the second time that Apple has held AI features back from the EU over the DMA, after withholding the original Apple Intelligence suite at its 2024 launch.
The decision to keep Siri AI out of the bloc “is Apple’s and Apple’s only,” Commission spokesperson Thomas Regnier said in response on Tuesday, stipulating that nothing in the DMA stops the company from launching new products in the EU.
Regnier said the Commission had been in contact with Apple, but that the company “was simply unable to develop interoperability solutions that meet the essential EU privacy and security standards.”
Rather than find a compliance fix, he said, Apple asked to be exempted from its interoperability obligations for at least 18 months. This would be a non-starter for the Commission, he said, because it would leave no rival assistant able to compete on equal terms with Siri AI, which Regnier noted is itself “powered by Google.”
“EU law is non-negotiable,” Regnier said. “The Commission won’t give any exemption, just like a police officer would not exempt a driver from respecting the speed limit.”
This report has been updated with Commission comment.