Apple’s Siri AI Blocked in the EU for iOS 27 and iPadOS 27 as DMA Talks Hit a Dead End

Apple’s biggest software reveal of the year just arrived with a very conspicuous asterisk. The Apple Siri AI EU delay for iOS 27 and iPadOS 27 is now official, confirmed at WWDC 2026 on June 8, as the company announced that European Union users will not be getting Siri AI on their iPhones and iPads when the new software ships later this year. The reason is a months-long regulatory standoff over the Digital Markets Act that ended, bluntly, with no deal at all.

Craig Federighi, Apple’s senior vice president of Software Engineering, was candid about his frustration. “We’re deeply disappointed that our EU users won’t have Siri AI on iPhone or iPad when we share our new software releases later this year,” he said, noting that Apple hopes to eventually bring Siri AI to the EU but currently has no timeline for when that will happen on iOS and iPadOS. For a company that spent years building toward this moment, those words carry considerable weight.

What Siri AI Actually Is

Siri AI is Apple’s entirely reimagined voice assistant, powered by the full depth of Apple Intelligence. At WWDC 2026, Apple unveiled a compelling set of new capabilities, including a dedicated standalone app where users can revisit past Siri conversations, an expanded Visual Intelligence experience, deep writing tool integration across the operating system, and a new Siri mode baked directly into the Camera app on iPhone. It is the most significant Siri overhaul in the assistant’s history, and after years of delays and broken promises, it finally looks like something that can hold its head up next to ChatGPT and Google Gemini.

Read Also: Apple Launches Siri AI: The Assistant That (Finally) Means Business

Which makes the EU exclusion sting that much more.

Why the EU Is Being Left Out

The Digital Markets Act compels Apple to allow other virtual assistants on its platforms to access the same features and capabilities as Siri. Apple’s argument is not against interoperability in principle. The problem, according to the company, is what EU regulators are demanding in practice.

Under the European Commission’s interpretation of the DMA, Apple says it would be required to give any third-party AI system nearly unlimited access to a user’s device, including the ability to read and send messages, make purchases, access files, and execute actions across any installed app, and all of this without meaningful ongoing user visibility or control. Security researchers have already demonstrated that AI systems can be weaponised to steal passwords, photos, and personal data, and to permanently alter files or account settings without user consent. As AI capabilities grow, Apple argues, those risks are scaling just as fast.

Apple’s Proposals and the EC’s Response

Apple did not simply walk away from the table. The company designed a solution called Trusted System Agent, an intermediary framework that would allow rival virtual assistants to safely access the same features as Siri AI on EU devices, with appropriate privacy and security protections in place. Apple also put forward a phased rollout plan, offering to launch Siri AI in the EU gradually while the Trusted System Agent framework rolled out over an 18-month window.

The European Commission rejected both proposals. In fact, Apple states that the European Commission did not accept a single one of the solutions Apple put forward over the past several months. That is not a negotiation that collapsed. That is a negotiation that never really started.

What EU Users Will and Won’t Receive

When iOS 27 and iPadOS 27 launch in the autumn, EU iPhone and iPad users will not have access to Siri AI or any of the new capabilities Apple announced at WWDC 2026. The specific features locked out include the new dedicated Siri app, the expanded Visual Intelligence experience, integrated writing tools, Siri mode in Camera, and all other Siri AI functionality.

It is not a complete blackout for European Apple customers, though. Siri AI will be available in the EU on macOS 27, visionOS 27, and watchOS 27, meaning Mac, Apple Watch, and Apple Vision Pro owners in Europe will still be able to experience the new assistant. The carve-out applies specifically to iPhone and iPad.

EU-based developers also lose out separately. Developers located within the EU will not be able to test or integrate the new Siri AI features into iOS and iPadOS apps, which has broader implications for the European app development ecosystem.

A Pattern That Keeps Repeating

This is far from the first time the DMA has stranded EU users on the wrong side of an Apple feature rollout. When Apple Intelligence was first announced at WWDC 2024, the EU similarly missed out on features including iPhone Mirroring and SharePlay Screen Sharing enhancements. The cycle of Apple announcing features, regulators demanding broad third-party access, and the two sides failing to agree on what “safe” access looks like has now played out twice in consecutive years.

Apple says it will continue working to bring Siri AI to iPhone and iPad in the EU as safely as possible, but there is currently no timeline for when that might happen.

Read Also: Your ChatGPT Memory Just Got a Massive Upgrade: Say Hello to Personalised ‘Dreaming’

A Regulation That Keeps Cutting the Wrong Way

The Digital Markets Act was designed to open up closed tech ecosystems and give European consumers more choices. In practice, it is increasingly the mechanism by which European consumers get fewer features than anyone else. There is a real philosophical argument worth having about whether Apple’s privacy concerns are genuine or convenient, but the outcome for actual EU iPhone users is the same regardless: they will be using a less capable Siri than their counterparts in the US, the UK, India, Australia, and virtually every other market where iOS 27 will ship. Regulation is supposed to protect users. This particular chapter of the DMA story seems to have done the opposite.