Apple Unveils Siri AI, But EU Regulatory Clash Delays European Launch

Apple’s annual developers’ conference in California this week delivered the long-trailed overhaul of its voice assistant, now rebranded Siri AI, yet the unveiling was immediately overshadowed by a transatlantic regulatory dispute that will keep the feature out of the European Union at launch. Thomas Regnier, the European Commission’s spokesman on digital affairs, told reporters in Brussels that Apple had sought an exemption from interoperability obligations under the Digital Markets Act but “simply was not able to develop solutions that met the essential privacy and security standards of the EU”. The decision not to deploy Siri AI in the bloc, he insisted, “is Apple’s and only Apple’s”.

The assistant itself represents a belated but ambitious leap: deeply integrated into Apple’s ecosystem, it can read on-screen content, act across apps, and draw on personal context such as messages, calendars and photos. Under the hood, however, lies a Google Gemini model, the fruit of an alliance that, as French and American commentators noted, underscores the increasingly intertwined relationships among the very giants that regulators are trying to keep apart. The event was almost certainly Tim Cook’s last WWDC keynote before he hands the chief executive role to John Ternus in September, lending the announcement a valedictory weight.

Viewed from Brussels, the standoff is straightforward: nothing in the DMA prevents Apple from launching a compliant AI assistant, and the company’s failure to meet interoperability requirements is its own. In Cupertino, the narrative is starkly different. Italian media reported that Apple accompanied its Siri AI presentation with a harsh accusation against Europe, blaming an intransigent application of the DMA for the delay. French press echoed the charge, describing a “new arm-wrestling match” between the American giant and EU authorities. The result is that users in Italy, France and across the continent will not see the feature when iOS 27 ships this autumn, even as developers begin testing immediately and a public beta is promised later in the year.

Beyond Europe, the rollout is proceeding. Indonesian technology sites noted that Siri AI will appear as a dedicated app with a chatbot-style conversation history, while Apple confirmed that iOS 27 will still support devices as old as the iPhone 11, though some models will be left behind. Analysts in London see the EU exclusion as a test case for the DMA’s enforcement as artificial intelligence becomes the next regulatory frontier. With Apple forced to rely on a rival’s model to power its signature assistant, and Brussels holding firm on interoperability and privacy, the episode may prefigure a broader reckoning over who sets the rules for AI in the world’s largest consumer markets.