EU Competition Chief Says Apple Intelligence Skipping the EU is “Disabling Competition”

Later this fall, Apple will debut a new set of generative AI tools labeled Apple Intelligence on the upcoming iOS 18, iPadOS 18, and macOS Sequoia. Apple Intelligence will launch in preview and will initially be only available in US English on iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max, as well as iPad and Mac with M1 chips or newer.

Apple already said that Apple Intelligence will add support for additional languages and platforms over the course of the next year. However, the company also confirmed that its personal intelligence system won’t launch in Europe in 2024 due to concerns over compliance with the EU’s Digital Markets Act.

“We are concerned that the interoperability requirements of the DMA could force us to compromise the integrity of our products in ways that risk user privacy and data security,” Apple said in a statement to Bloomberg last week. However, for Margrethe Vestager, the European Commissioner for Competition, Apple Intelligence skipping the EU this fall is another display of the company’s anticompetitive behaviour.

“I find that very interesting that they say we will now deploy AI where we’re not obliged to enable competition,” Vestager said at the Forum Europa event yesterday (via 9to5Mac). “I think that is the most sort of stunning open declaration that they know 100% that this is another way of disabling competition where they have a stronghold already.”

This is a strong statement from the EU Commissioner that may leave many people following the tech industry scratching their heads. And it may not accurately reflect Apple’s true intentions regarding the rollout of Apple Intelligence, which will actually integrate with OpenAI’s ChatGPT. Apple also said at its WWDC conference earlier this month that it’s willing to integrate Apple Intelligence with more third-party AI models in the future. The company was reportedly in talks with Google to use the company’s Gemini AI.

Apple’s partnership with ChatGPT for Apple Intelligence is likely the consequence of the company’s own AI models not being on par with the competition yet. Apple Intelligence will launch with a “preview” label, and the ChatGPT integration will be optional. Moreover, users of supported Apple devices will still be able to use other AI models, either via the web or dedicated apps.

It’s hard to say that Apple Intelligence not coming to the EU is anti-competitive when the company isn’t blocking other AI chatbots on its devices in the EU. And again, Apple is already committed to integrating its personal intelligence system with third-party AI models.

It’s not unprecedented for a big company like Apple and Microsoft to only launch a new service in select markets. You may remember that Microsoft’s Copilot assistant wasn’t initially available in Europe on Windows as Microsoft needed time to make its OS compliant with the DMA. At this time, however, we didn’t hear Vestager say that Microsoft was being anti-competitive.