BRUSSELS—The reply arrived one day after Apple told the world its new voice assistant would not come to Europe: no. The European Commission on June 9 rejected Apple’s request for an 18-month exemption from the interoperability requirements of the Digital Markets Act, a decision that leaves hundreds of millions of European iPhone users without Siri AI for the foreseeable future.
The rejection sets up a standoff between the world’s most valuable company and the world’s most aggressive tech regulator. Apple announced at its developer conference on June 8 that Siri AI, the biggest overhaul of its voice assistant in fifteen years, would not ship with iOS 27 and iPadOS 27 in the European Union, citing the DMA’s rules on opening its devices to rival services. The Commission’s response was blunt: Apple’s compliance problems are of its own making.
The Commission’s account differs sharply from Apple’s. Apple said it had proposed a detailed technical solution, a privacy-preserving layer called Trusted System Agent that would let rival assistants access the same device features as Siri AI, and that regulators rejected it on security grounds. Regulators told a different story. Instead of engineering a compliant solution and submitting it for review, they said, Apple simply asked to be excused from its obligations for a year and a half.
That’s not an option, the Commission’s spokesman, Thomas Regnier, told reporters. An exemption would have let Siri AI establish itself in the European market for 18 months before any competing assistant gained comparable access to iPhones, precisely the kind of head start the DMA was designed to prevent. The Commission noted that Siri AI is powered by a custom version of Google’s Gemini model, meaning Apple’s assistant, built on a rival’s technology, would have enjoyed a platform advantage no European competitor could match.
The underlying dispute is about how the DMA’s interoperability obligations apply to AI assistants. The law, which took full effect in 2024, requires companies designated as gatekeepers, a list that includes Apple, to open their core platform services to third parties. Apple has long argued that granting rival assistants deep access to its devices would compromise user security, a claim regulators have repeatedly rejected. The Commission fined Apple 500 million euros in April 2025, the first penalty it had imposed under the DMA, over app-store practices.
For European users, the consequence is concrete. Siri AI, which Apple describes as a fundamental rethinking of the assistant with the ability to control apps, process on-device data and carry out multi-step tasks, will not arrive with the new operating systems this fall. Apple has given no timeline for a European launch and, according to reporting cited in the trade press, its engineering teams are no longer actively working on one while the impasse continues.
The fight is part of a broader pattern. Apple delayed the European launch of its first AI features in 2024 over the same regulatory concerns, then reached a compromise after months of talks. The current dispute looks more entrenched. The Commission has given no indication it will revisit its rejection, and Apple has shown no willingness to redesign Siri AI to satisfy the DMA’s requirements as Brussels interprets them.
The stakes go beyond Siri. The DMA’s interoperability provisions are being tested in parallel proceedings involving messaging, app stores and other platform features, and the Siri case will set a precedent for how the rules apply to AI. Regulators across the world, from Washington to London to Tokyo, are watching how the first major AI product runs into the first major AI-era regulation.
The market’s reaction has been muted so far. Apple’s shares barely moved on the news, a sign that investors see the European dispute as contained, at least for now. But the numbers involved are not trivial: the European Union is Apple’s second-largest market, and the assistant is central to the company’s effort to make AI a reason to buy its devices.
The two institutions are now publicly at odds over who is responsible. Apple says the law, as interpreted by the Commission, makes a secure implementation impossible. The Commission says Apple chose not to comply, and that security concerns are a pretext. Regnier’s remarks left little room for ambiguity: Apple asked for a pass, and the pass was denied.
For the 450 million Europeans who use iPhones and iPads, the practical result is that the most significant Siri update in the assistant’s history will pass them by at launch, with no agreed path forward. The question now is whether either side blinks before the new operating systems ship this fall, or whether the standoff becomes the template for every future AI feature Apple wants to sell in Europe.
