Why is Siri Ai not coming to the EU in iOS 27?

Apple briefed the EU on how Siri AI worked months ago and tried to find a compromise. The European Union stood firm and insisted keeping other vendors out of the new feature was illegal under the DMA.

Apple made the unusual step of taking time in the WWDC keynote to say that Siri AI would not be coming to the European Union. It was a public announcement aimed at blaming the EU for preventing users from getting the new iOS features.

Now Apple has stepped up its PR fight by detailing how it says the EU is intractable over its demand that would see privacy controls stripped away. Briefing journalists after the WWDC keynote, Greg Joswiak has revealed that Apple went further than ever before in attempting to negotiate with the European Commission.

According to French news site Numerama, Joswiak says Apple even revealed its plans for Siri AI to the EU at the start of 2026. Apple has reportedly never revealed plans so early before, but did so specifically to avoid the months of delays after the launch of live translation in AirPods Pro.

The issue concerns the EU’s Digital Markets Act (DMA), which demands that any rival that wants it, must have exactly the same access to iOS features as Apple. Launching Siri AI without rivals getting full access on day one would therefore be illegal.

“[So they] could read all your messages, edit your files, delete things, delete your photos, [and] take actions in your applications without you knowing or consenting,” said Joswiak, in translation. While a compromise was found for live translation, “[Siri AI is] much more complex and much more deeply integrated into the system.”

He argued that opening access to see what third-party firms do would mean putting users at risk. Joswiak called it the EU telling Apple to conduct an experiment on the millions of users in the region.

In an attempt to comply with the DMA yet preserve user privacy, Apple proposed adding a Trusted System Agent. This would be a mechanism that would allow rivals access to the same Siri AI functions, but let Apple maintain user security.

According to Apple, however, the European Commission rejected this. The company is describing this as “the most obvious example to date of the extreme interpretation of the DMA by the Commission.”

As yet, neither the European Union or the European Commission have commented publicly. Based on its most recent review of the DMA, however, the EU is unlikely to reverse its decision.

Apple and EU standoff

Back in May 2025, Apple appealed against the EU’s $570 million antitrust fine and for the first time went public with accusations of the company being ghosted.

Greg Joswiak, Apple vice president of iOS, iPad and iPhone Marketing

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At the time, Apple spoke of having spent hundreds of thousands of engineering hours on changes to comply with the EU. In the new report, though, Apple now says that it no longer knows what to work on.

So currently none of its engineers are working on adapting Siri AI to meet the EU’s demands. That means Apple is no longer budging, either.

Apple’s assumption that rival companies will exploit access and sell user data does seem to be well-founded. In 2024, for instance, it reported how Facebook owner Meta had filed requests for user data access that had nothing to do with its apps or their functions.

Based on that, the EU’s stance does appear to be disregarding the security and privacy of its people.

But with an apparent absolute refusal to consider Apple’s points, it could be years before EU users get Siri AI. If they ever get it at all.