It took a few years, but Apple finally made its AI useful. Now millions of iPhone users in Europe are being told they won’t get Siri AI anytime soon, if ever – and Apple wants them to blame the EU.
Apple says its new AI-powered Siri won’t launch on iPhones and iPads in the European Union due to the Digital Markets Act, the bloc’s competition law designed to prevent powerful tech companies from acting as gatekeepers to rivals on their platforms. In practice, DMA requires platforms to give competitors the same type of data access that they themselves enjoy, with some exceptions for things like ensuring that their systems have not been compromised.
This interoperability requirement means giving groups like OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic, as well as any other potential Siri rivals, equal access to Apple systems. For an Assistant designed to view apps, personal information, photos, messages and videos, and take actions on users’ behalf, that’s a lot of reach.
For Apple, this is too much reach to hand over to outside companies. Doing so would threaten the privacy and security of its customers, Apple said, so much so that it would rather block Siri AI from Europe than build it on Brussels’ terms and let others join in. Apple said it has proposed solutions such as its Trusted Systems Agent, which would act as an intermediary between rival AI agents and Apple’s systems, providing a comparable level of access and capability. Apple said it would require 18 months to implement on a “gradually rolling out” basis. Apple said the European Commission rejected this and its other proposals and, as things stand, said there is “currently no timeline for the availability of Siri AI in the EU on iOS and iPadOS.”
For its part, the European Commission says nothing about its rules is stopping Apple from introducing new features.
“Nothing in the DMA prevents Apple from introducing new products and services in the EU,” European Commission spokesman Ricardo Cardoso said. The Verge. Cardoso said the Commission is in “regular contact with Apple” on the matter, but added that “Apple has not developed proposals for DMA compliant interoperability solutions.”
This has created a deadlock between both sides. Apple insists that complying with EU regulations would jeopardize the privacy of its customers to such an extent that it would not want to release the AI assistant it has been building for years. Meanwhile, the Commission argues that Apple is using its power to harass competitors and limit consumer choice. “It is not their job to decide who gets to innovate, or to choose which AI tools EU citizens get to use,” Cardoso said.
“Apple’s privacy and security model is built like a Jenga tower, based on excessive vertical control by the firm, and risks collapsing when interoperability is introduced.”
Apple is clearly hoping that the court of public opinion will rule in its favor. The company took the unusual step of devoting part of its WWDC 2026 keynote to explaining why Siri AI won’t be coming to Europe, then published a nostalgically titled blog post on the matter: “Due to DMA, Siri AI delayed in EU for iOS 27 and iPadOS 27.” It has also been holding media briefings specifically about the European issue. China will again miss out on Siri AI due to regulatory challenges. It was disseminated through a one-sentence footnote.
This is a familiar strategy for Apple. The company has a history of invoking privacy and security concerns when regulators try to open up parts of its famously closed ecosystem. It has already blamed DMA interoperability requirements for preventing AirPods Live Translation and iPhone mirroring as well as Maps features in the EU. Those concerns are often real and legitimate, but they are one of Apple’s most effective arguments for maintaining control over its vast tech empire.
Friso Boston, professor of competition law and digital regulation at Tilburg University in the Netherlands, said there are very real security and privacy risks in forcing platforms to open up their systems. But Apple’s privacy and security-focused arguments don’t always hold up to scrutiny, Boston said, pointing to recent court cases in the UK and US where judges were skeptical of the company’s claims.
Jan Penfrat, senior policy advisor at European Digital Rights (EDRI), a network of NGOs, experts and advocates campaigning for digital rights across Europe, sees Apple’s latest moves as a means of putting pressure on the EU Commission to allow the DMA to be broken. “It’s very much a lobbying strategy,” he said. “The problem is not DMA’s but Apple’s refusal to open up its anti-competitive software ecosystem.”
For Michael Veale, professor of technology law and policy at University College London, the main issue is that Apple is making exceptions to its own long-standing privacy and security setup “in order to stay relevant and in the game” when it comes to AI. “Apple’s privacy and security model is built like a Jenga tower, based on excessive vertical control by the firm, and risks collapsing when interoperability is introduced.” In other words: Apple is comfortable changing its own practices for Siri AI, giving the AI the ability to access lots of data across different apps, but arguing that same kind of access is too dangerous when competitors ask for it.
Both Weale and Penfrat said there is no way to accurately assess Apple’s proposed solution because the company has not made it public. Other experts, like Boston, questioned why Apple needed up to 18 months to implement it, when interoperability requirements could have been anticipated and should have been addressed along with the development of Siri AI.
After all, Apple is playing a big game of chicken with Europe. The EU is a huge market, and Apple has every incentive to find a way to eventually bring Siri AI there, especially as it becomes a bigger part of the iPhone experience. Apple managed to include USB-C chargers in its products when Europe pressed on the issue. Will Europe now force the AI issue with Apple, or will Brussels be the first to blink?
Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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