Siri AI Delayed in EU After Apple Rejected Compliance Path

Apple framed the absence of Siri AI in the EU as a regulatory standoff, implying Brussels refused to engage. The EU’s public response this week tells a different story, and the gap between the two accounts is wider than a typical compliance dispute.

The European Commission says Apple never presented a compliant solution at all. Instead, the company asked for an 18-month blanket exemption from its Digital Markets Act interoperability obligations, was told that was not an option, and is now characterizing the outcome as a mutual failure to agree. Spokesperson Thomas Regnier was direct: “The decision not to roll out Siri AI in the EU is Apple’s and Apple’s only.”

Apple’s public argument rested on privacy. The company claimed DMA interoperability rules would force AI systems to grant third-party apps “nearly unlimited access” to user devices, and said it proposed a Trusted System Agent framework as an alternative. The Commission’s account suggests regulators never reached that technical conversation because Apple’s opening position was a request to skip the obligations entirely for a year and a half.

What the DMA Actually Requires

The DMA designates Apple as a gatekeeper and requires it to open certain functions to third-party developers. Nothing in the regulation prohibits launching new features in the EU, which makes the framing of a regulatory block harder to sustain. The law requires compliant interoperability, not a choice between compliance and launch.

EU users will miss Siri AI on iPhone and iPad when Apple’s major software updates ship later this year, joining China as a notable absence from the initial Siri AI rollout. Apple has offered no timeline for bringing the feature to either market.

The dispute now sits in a familiar place: Apple has a compliance obligation, regulators have rejected the workaround, and users in one of Apple’s largest markets are waiting with no firm answer.