Apple's EU Standoff: Siri AI Blocked by Digital Markets Act Dispute

Apple unveiled the most significant overhaul of Siri in fifteen years at its developer conference this week. The new version, built on Apple Intelligence, can read your screen, messages, email, and photos to answer complex questions and execute tasks across applications. But European iPhone and iPad users won't get it. When Apple releases iOS 27 and iPadOS 27 later this year, Siri AI will be absent from those devices in the European Union. The same goes for Apple Watch, which depends on a compatible iPhone. Mac and Vision Pro users in Europe will have access—a telling exception that reveals this is not a technical problem but a regulatory one.

The culprit, according to Apple, is the Digital Markets Act, Brussels' law requiring large platforms designated as "digital gatekeepers" to open their systems to competition. Apple contends that launching Siri AI in Europe under the Commission's interpretation of that rule would force the company to grant any rival assistant direct access to user data and the ability to control other installed apps, without adequate safeguards to protect that information. The new Siri operates differently from its predecessor. It works autonomously, reading and sending messages, accessing files, and chaining actions between apps on the user's behalf. Apple emphasizes that all this processing happens on the device or through Private Cloud Compute, its server infrastructure designed to extend iPhone privacy to the cloud.

Apple's position is that an assistant with these permissions should not be opened to third parties without filters. Craig Federighi, the company's senior vice president of software engineering, stated with unusual directness: "We are deeply disappointed that our EU users will not have Siri AI on iPhone or iPad when we release new software versions this year." The company points to security researchers who have demonstrated that AI systems can be hijacked to steal passwords and photos or alter files without consent. Its argument is that granting this level of access to external assistants would multiply the risk as AI capabilities expand.

To circumvent the blockade, Apple designed what it calls a Trusted System Agent—an intermediary that would allow rival assistants to access the same functions as Siri AI without bypassing privacy protections. The company proposed a phased deployment, launching Siri AI in Europe while gradually introducing this mechanism over eighteen months. The European Commission said no. According to Apple, it rejected every single proposal. The company views this as "the clearest example to date" of what it considers an excessive reading of the regulation. Greg Joswiak, Apple's marketing chief, told reporters after the presentation that Apple had shown regulators, in an unprecedented move, how Siri AI works as early as early 2026. Still, no agreement was reached.

Brussels tells a different story. Thomas Regnier, the Commission's digital affairs spokesman, responded the next day with a message that left little room for negotiation: "The decision not to launch Siri AI in the EU is Apple's and Apple's alone." Nothing in the DMA, he argued, prevents the company from introducing new products in Europe. Regnier went further, accusing Apple of bad faith compliance. "Apple simply was unable to develop interoperability solutions that meet the EU's essential standards for privacy and security," he said, before charging that the company was directly asking for an exemption from its obligations rather than a solution compatible with the regulation. "That is not an option," he concluded.

This is the latest chapter in a relationship that seems destined for conflict. In April 2025, the Commission fined Apple 500 million euros for violating the DMA by preventing developers from informing users about payment alternatives outside the App Store—the first penalty of its kind under the new law. Brussels has made clear since then that it has no intention of modifying or repealing the regulation because of Apple's complaints. The interoperability front is not helping matters. A report from the Free Software Foundation Europe published in April found that as of March 22, none of the fifty-six formal interoperability requests submitted by developers under the DMA had resulted in a concrete solution from Apple. The organization reported that many were rejected on the grounds that the functions "fell outside the scope of the law."

Underlying all of this is a deeper conflict that extends far beyond Siri. It is Apple's model of a controlled ecosystem against Europe's insistence on opening the system to competition. Artificial intelligence, which demands deep integration with the device, has become the thorniest battleground in that struggle. With few good options, Apple has chosen to withhold the launch of several features and tools. The first version of Apple Intelligence took nearly a year to reach Europe; simultaneous translation on AirPods was also delayed by several weeks. Some tools, like iPhone Mirroring, have been stalled for years because implementing them the EU way would require giving third parties access to user information that Apple itself often does not even collect. The question now is whether this pattern will continue, or whether one side will eventually yield.