◆ Apple presented at the WWDC 2026 event a completely reworked Siri, built on artificial intelligence, but announced that it will not bring it to the iPhone and iPad in the European Union with the new software versions that it launches this year, citing the Digital Markets Act (DMA). ◆ European iPhone and iPad users are left without the dedicated Siri app, the extended Visual Intelligence experience, the built-in writing tools, and the Siri mode in the Camera — features that US users will get. ◆ EU developers will not even be able to test the new features. ◆ It is the third episode of a pattern that started in 2024, when Apple kept Apple Intelligence and the iPhone Mirroring function away from the EU; the first still arrived in April 2025, the second is still missing – although EU customers don’t pay less for the limited Apple experience. ◆ Apple blames the «extreme interpretation» of the DMA and the rejection, by the European Commission, of the proposed solutions; critics, however, see in the repeated retention of functions a pressure tactic on Brussels – the company sacrifices the experience of customers to solve its problems with the European institutions. US giant Apple launched a completely revamped AI-powered Siri assistant at its annual developer conference WWDC 2026 – but iPhone and iPad users in the European Union won’t get it with the new software versions the company is rolling out later this year. Apple invokes, again, a European law – the Digital Markets Act (DMA) – and says, in a statement published on Monday, that it does not yet have a timetable for the availability of the new assistant in the EU. Although it does not offer any compensation to its customers in the European Union for providing them with limited versions of its products, Apple only insists on the problems that the European regulations would raise. You may also be interested: «We are deeply disappointed that our users in the EU will not have Siri AI on their iPhone or iPad when we release new software versions this year,» said Craig Federighi, Apple’s senior vice president of software engineering. The company says it hopes to eventually bring the features to Europe, but accuses European regulators of their «refusal to constructively discuss solutions that protect privacy and security.» Loosely translated, this means, in Apple jargon, that there is no release date. On iPhone and iPad, users in the 27 member states will not have access to the new Siri and its advanced functions: the dedicated application for replaying conversations with the assistant, the extended Visual Intelligence experience (which «sees» and interprets what is on the screen or through the phone’s camera), the integrated writing tools, the Siri mode in the Camera application and the rest of the functions announced at WWDC 2026.
However, the restriction only applies to the iPhone and iPad. The same Siri AI will be available for European users on Mac (macOS 27), Apple Watch (watchOS 27) and Vision Pro (visionOS 27) – platforms which, according to the company, do not fall under the same DMA requirements. However, the contrast remains visible to the user: the same function is offered on the Mac, but retained on the iPhone. Additionally, EU developers will not be able to test or integrate the new Siri features into their own iPhone and iPad apps. Europe is not the only region excluded – the new Siri will not reach China either, where Apple cites regulatory requirements. The bottom line is that the new Siri that Apple keeps away from iPhones in the EU does not work on a technology developed entirely by Apple: the most capable level of the assistant runs on an artificial intelligence model built by Google. Apple confirmed at WWDC 2026 that the new generation of its own models (Apple Foundation Models) and the new Siri are based on Google’s Gemini models – after two years in which the company tried, without success, to deliver a competitive assistant with its own technology.
According to Bloomberg, which first reported the deal in November 2025, Apple is paying about $1 billion a year for a custom Gemini model with about 1.2 trillion parameters — about eight times the size of the largest Apple-built model, with 150 billion parameters. Apple says Google’s model runs on its own secure infrastructure, Private Cloud Compute, so user data doesn’t reach Google. The new Siri combines three levels: models that run directly on the device, Private Cloud Compute and the Gemini model, for the most complex tasks. The agreement with Google comes after a period in which Apple’s strategy in artificial intelligence has been marked by delays, errors and staff departures. In June 2024, Apple announced, at the same conference for developers, the Apple Intelligence package and a «personal» Siri capable of understanding the context on the screen and acting within applications. However, the most ambitious functions were not delivered on time. One of the first features to be launched, AI-generated digests of notifications, had to be suspended in early 2025 after it distorted headlines – including the BBC, which publicly protested – by attributing false information to some publications. Apple has disabled the feature for news apps. In March 2025, Apple admitted that the new Siri «will take longer than we anticipated» and pulled ads promoting features not yet delivered. According to Bloomberg, an Apple executive responsible for Siri called the delays «ugly» and «embarrassing» in an internal meeting. The promotion of these features also attracted a class-action lawsuit in the United States for misleading advertising, which Apple agreed to settle with a $250 million settlement without admitting guilt. A management reorganization followed. Also in 2025, Tim Cook moved responsibility for Siri from the head of the artificial intelligence division, John Giannandrea – in whom, writes Bloomberg, he had lost confidence – to Mike Rockwell, the man behind the Vision Pro headset, under the coordination of Craig Federighi. Giannandrea later left the company. In parallel, Apple lost key people. In July 2025, Ruoming Pang, the head of the team that trained the company’s fundamental models, left for Meta’s «superintelligence» division, followed by other researchers from the same group; Pang later came to OpenAI. Against this backdrop, the decision to outsource Siri’s «brain» to Google confirms a systematic failure to build a relevant AI assistant by a company with some of the deepest pockets in the industry (over $60 billion cash in accounts). The company’s explanation for the poor experience offered to EU customers is related to the way the company chooses to interpret the interoperability obligations imposed by the DMA, the European law that obliges the large platforms – designated by the EU as «gatekeepers» – to open their services to competitors. According to Apple, the «extreme interpretation» given by the regulators would force the company to give any third-party virtual assistant direct access to the user’s private data and control over other installed applications, without the necessary protections. Specifically, Apple claims, DMA would require an assistant to receive «almost unlimited access» to the device and be able to act autonomously — read and send messages, make purchases, access files and perform actions in any app — without the user seeing or permanently controlling what’s going on. The company cites security researchers who have shown that AI systems can be hijacked to steal passwords or photos or modify files without consent. Apple says it has proposed a technical solution — an intermediary called a «Trusted System Agent» that would have allowed other assistants to securely access the same functions as Siri — and an 18-month rollout plan. «The European Commission said no. In fact, the European Commission did not agree with any of Apple’s proposals,» the company said in a statement. The situation is not new. In 2024, Apple announced that it would not bring the Apple Intelligence package, iPhone Mirroring (phone control from Mac) and SharePlay Screen Sharing to the EU at launch – citing the same DMA-related reasons. However, Apple Intelligence arrived in the Union in April 2025, together with iOS 18.4, after several months of tension. The iPhone Mirroring function, on the other hand, remained unavailable in the EU. The WWDC 2026 announcement adds the new Siri to the same list. Critics and some European officials have previously characterized such delays as a form of pressure, in which the company tries to transfer user dissatisfaction to regulators in Brussels.
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