Apple’s game of chicken with EU over Siri AI: Who will blink first? | The Verge
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Apple blames DMA for delaying Siri AI in Europe. The EU says nothing is stopping Apple from launching it.
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Apple blames DMA for delaying Siri AI in Europe. The EU says nothing is stopping Apple from launching it.
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It took a few years, but Apple finally made its AI look useful. Now millions of i Phone users in Europe are being told they won’t be getting Siri AI anytime soon, if ever — and Apple wants them to blame the EU.
Apple says its new AI-powered Siri will not launch on i Phones and i Pads in the European Union because of the Digital Markets Act, the bloc’s competition law designed to stop powerful tech companies from acting as gatekeepers over their platforms to shut out rivals. In practice, the DMA requires platforms to give competitors the same kinds of data access as they themselves enjoy, with a few exceptions for things like ensuring their system is not compromised.
This interoperability requirement means giving groups like Open AI, Google, and Anthropic — as well as any other potential Siri rivals — similar access to Apple systems. For an assistant designed to look across apps, personal information, photos, messages, and videos and take actions on users’ behalf, that’s a lot of access.
For Apple, that’s far too much access to hand over to outside companies. Doing so would risk the privacy and security of its customers, Apple said, so much so that it would rather withhold Siri AI from Europe than build it on Brussels’ terms and let others in. Apple said it has proposed solutions, such as its Trusted System Agent, which would act as an intermediary between rival AI agents and Apple’s systems, giving comparable levels of access and capability. Apple said it would need 18 months to implement it on a “gradually rolling” basis. Apple said the European Commission rejected this and its other proposals and, as things stand, said “there is currently no timeline for Siri AI’s availability in the EU on i OS and i Pad OS.”
For its part, the European Commission says nothing about its rules is stopping Apple from introducing new features.
“Nothing in the DMA prohibits Apple from introducing new products and services in the EU,” European Commission spokesperson Ricardo Cardoso told The Verge. Cardoso said the Commission has been in “regular contact with Apple” on the matter, but added that “Apple did not develop proposals for DMA compliant interoperability solutions.”
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That leaves the two sides at an impasse. Apple insists that complying with the EU’s rules would risk its customers’ privacy to such an extent that it would rather not release the AI assistant it has been building toward for years. The Commission, meanwhile, argues that Apple is using its power to stymie competitors and limit consumer choice. “It is not for them 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 extreme vertical control by the firm, and risks collapsing when interoperability is introduced.”
Apple is clearly hoping the court of public opinion will rule in its favor. The company took the unusual step of dedicating part of its WWDC 2026 keynote to explaining why Siri AI won’t be coming to Europe, then published an icily titled blog post on the matter: “Due to DMA, Siri AI delayed in EU for i OS 27 and i Pad OS 27.” It has also been holding media briefings specifically about the European issue. China will also miss out on Siri AI, again due to regulatory challenges. That was relayed through a one-sentence footnote.
It is a familiar tactic for Apple. The company has a history of invoking privacy and security concerns when regulators try to make it open up parts of its famously closed ecosystem. It has already blamed the DMA’s interoperability requirements for withholding Air Pods live translation and i Phone mirroring in the EU, as well as Maps features. Those concerns are often real and legitimate, but they are also among Apple’s most effective arguments for preserving control over its vast technological empire.
Friso Bostoen, a 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 do not always hold up to scrutiny, Bostoen said, pointing to recent court cases in the UK and US where judges were skeptical of the company’s claims.
Jan Penfrat, a senior policy adviser for 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 it to break the DMA. “It’s very much a lobbying tactic,” he said. “The problem is not the DMA but Apple refusing to open up its competition-busting software ecosystem.”
For Michael Veale, a professor of technology law and policy at University College London, the core issue is that Apple is making an exception 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 extreme vertical control by the firm, and risks collapsing when interoperability is introduced.” In other words: Apple’s comfortable altering its own practices for Siri AI, giving the AI the ability to access lots of data across different apps, but argues the same kind of access is too dangerous when competitors ask for it.
Veale and Penfrat both said there’s no way to properly assess Apple’s proposed solution because the company has not made it public. Other experts, such as Bostoen, questioned why Apple needs as long as 18 months to implement it, given the interoperability requirements were predictable and should have been addressed in parallel with the development of Siri AI.
Ultimately, 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 bring Siri AI there eventually, particularly as it becomes a larger part of the i Phone experience. Apple managed to put USB-C chargers in its products when Europe forced the issue. Will Europe force the AI issue with Apple now, or will Brussels be the one to blink first?
Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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