Tim Cook reportedly held “constructive” talks with EU tech chief Henna Virkkunen as Apple and the bloc sought a way forward in their dispute over the delayed launch of Siri AI in Europe.
A Bit of Context
During WWDC26, Apple announced that Siri AI would not launch in the EU alongside iOS 27 and iPadOS 27, citing the Digital Markets Act. Shortly after the keynote, the company published a strongly worded statement on its Newsroom, placing the blame squarely on EU regulators:
Apple today introduced Siri AI, an entirely new version of Siri, powered by Apple Intelligence. Unfortunately, due to the Digital Markets Act (DMA), Apple will not be able to ship Siri AI in the European Union with the release of iOS 27 and iPadOS 27. Over the past several months, EU regulators did not accept any of Apple’s proposed solutions to bring Siri AI to the EU while safely supporting other virtual assistants.
Apple’s proposed solution was called Trusted System Agent, which the company described as “an intermediary that would allow virtual assistants to safely access the same features and capabilities as Siri AI for devices in the EU,” as determined by the bloc’s Digital Markets Act.
Apple said it proposed an 18-month transition period that would allow Siri AI to launch while the company gradually rolled out Trusted System Agent, but claimed the European Commission rejected the plan.
In the post, Apple vowed to “continue working to bring these features to the European Union as safely as possible.” However, it made a point of saying that there was no timeline for Siri AI’s availability on iOS and iPadOS in the bloc due to “the regulators’ failure to acknowledge” the risks it says the DMA poses to European users.
The next day, European Commission spokesman Thomas Regnier shot back, saying that he needed to “set the record straight”:
The decision not to roll out Siri AI in the EU is Apple’s and Apple’s only because absolutely nothing in the DMA prohibits Apple from introducing new products in the EU.
And:
Apple was simply unable to develop interoperability solutions that meet essential EU privacy and security standards.
Tim Cook Steps In
As reported by the Financial Times, Tim Cook held a virtual meeting with Henna Virkkunen — whose official title is Executive Vice-President of the European Commission for Technological Sovereignty, Security, and Democracy — to address the impasse over Siri AI.
From the FT’s report:
An EU spokesperson said the virtual meeting had involved a “constructive exchange on topics of common interest, on which the work continues.”
The meeting included a discussion of how Apple can launch its reinvented Siri in Europe while avoiding millions of dollars in fines for violating the bloc’s flagship competition rules, according to two people familiar with the talks.
While the report did not indicate how much progress had been made, the meeting offers further evidence of how Cook will remain personally involved in Apple’s government relations around the world after stepping down as CEO.
Just two weeks ago, he also gave an interview to The Wall Street Journal about the global memory shortage and its impact on Apple, ahead of the company’s decision to increase prices for many of its products. At the time, many saw the interview as an attempt to publicly pressure the Trump administration into easing restrictions on Chinese suppliers. A few days later, the Financial Times revealed that Apple had been lobbying the government for precisely that for at least a month.
Cook’s meeting with Virkkunen signals that despite the public sparring, Apple remains engaged with EU officials in search of a path forward. The fact that Cook is directly involved in the negotiations does not come as a surprise, but it does suggest that Apple may be more eager to resolve the stalemate than it initially appeared — with Siri AI central to both this year’s software releases and the company’s broader strategy going forward.
