00:00Hey Siri, why is the new Siri AI not coming to Europe this week?
00:05Would you like me to use ChatGPT to answer that?
00:08So, in the age of ChatGPT, Claude, and Google Gemini,
00:11Apple's Siri has become pretty useless.
00:14So maybe you were excited to hear that a new Siri was coming, Siri AI.
00:20Two years after Apple announced it, and with help from Google,
00:23Apple had created a Siri that could actually answer your questions,
00:27just like ChatGPT.
00:28That is, unless you live in Europe.
00:31In this case, when it was announced that Siri wouldn't be ruled out,
00:35that obviously ended up with a situation with a lot of upset European users.
00:40That announcement came in June at Apple's developer conference.
00:43Apple blamed the EU's strict regulation that is supposed to give European consumers
00:48more choice, the Digital Markets Act, or DMA.
00:52The European Commission wanted Apple to allow other AI companies access to our iPhones
00:57so consumers could choose which AI assistant to use.
01:01And the new Siri is able to do more than just answer your questions.
01:05Apple says it can understand the content on your phone
01:08and to use that to give you personalized answers.
01:12Say you've heard about a local concert.
01:14How can I get tickets?
01:15Okay, you have to enter a lottery to get the tickets.
01:18Remind me to sign up when the lottery opens.
01:21Okay, I got a reminder.
01:23Reminders, music, the things you'd expect Siri to do.
01:26But now that much more capable.
01:28This looks great, but what if you want to use a different AI assistant to do the same on your
01:34iPhone?
01:34Apple said giving that kind of functionality to its competitors was a security risk.
01:39It said it had asked the EU for an 18-month grace period,
01:43but that Brussels wasn't interested in its proposals.
01:46The EU was not amused.
01:48We have indeed seen Apple's statement,
01:52and I think we indeed need to set the record straight.
01:55So first, the decision not to roll out Siri AI in the EU is apples and apples only.
02:03Because absolutely nothing in the DMA prohibits Apple from introducing new products in the EU.
02:10What Apple is, however, not allowed to do,
02:12just like any other gatekeeper, is to close the market.
02:15It is not for them to decide who gets to innovate in Europe,
02:19and it's not for them to choose which AI tools our EU citizens get to use or not.
02:25So, Apple blames the EU, the EU is blaming Apple.
02:29Is Brussels asking Apple to do the impossible,
02:32or is Apple simply unwilling to do it?
02:35It is true that there are two stories out there.
02:40That is Alexandre Destrel.
02:41He is a professor of European law and academic director of the digital research program
02:47at the Brussels think tank, the Center on Regulation in Europe.
02:50In a way, it's a difficult problem,
02:52because we want to open the ecosystem, and in this case, Siri AI,
02:59and at the same time, ensure that there is sufficient security, privacy, and service integrity.
03:04Okay, and there is a kind of a fine balancing to be done between, on the one hand, openness,
03:11which is the mandate of the DMA,
03:13and on the other hand, preserving security, service integrity, and privacy.
03:19And the way I see it is that Apple is mentioning a lot those three elements
03:26to limit the openness or the way they want to open Siri AI,
03:32while the Commission says, no, the equilibrium should be a little bit more towards openness.
03:38I think now we are a little bit with storytelling by Apple,
03:42because that's part of their lobbying strategy, I would say.
03:46Let's take a step back and look at the Digital Markets Act.
03:50You might not have heard about it, but if you live in Europe, you've noticed its effects.
03:54When you set up your new iPhone, and you actively have to choose a browser,
03:59Apple Safari, Google Chrome, or any other from the whole list, that's the DMA.
04:05Or when you have to choose if you want to use Google or Bing for search,
04:10you've got the DMA to thank for that too.
04:12But was the Digital Markets Act meant to deal with complex systems like an AI personal assistant?
04:18I think that these questions did not exist in their exact form when the DMA was pitched.
04:23That's Jacob Parry. He's a journalist for Politico Europe.
04:27Based in Brussels, he covers EU competition, tech, and industrial policy.
04:32The thing is that this law was written looking at a pretty set or pat set of features back in
04:402020-24,
04:41and a few particular inputs, like being able to add in competing speakers and headphones.
04:50What it perhaps did not have as clearly in mind was what to do with future and emerging technologies.
04:57I mean, the DMA really, I mean, when it fully came into effect in 2024,
05:01I mean, we were really only beginning to talk about consumer-facing AI,
05:06but this is a regulation that's intended to make some of sort of these key gateways
05:13between users and the big tech firms.
05:18So the app stores, the devices, the search engines, we all rely on.
05:24So the DMA is intended to make those gateways competitive
05:30so that we're not all stuck with one default search engine as we are now,
05:34that we're not all stuck with one default AI provider as fears in this case we could end up.
05:43So this is all about choice.
05:45But do we really want choice?
05:47Or would you be happy if Apple made the choice for you?
05:51If it decided that Siri AI is the best digital assistant
05:55to have access to your personal information?
05:58Most people don't want to make a choice.
06:00Most people end up choosing the default.
06:03Some people may say, you know, democracy is boring
06:06because I have to vote every four or five years,
06:09and I prefer a dictatorship.
06:11But I mean, I don't want to compare, of course,
06:13the digital ecosystem to a dictatorship.
06:14But the problem is the same, you know,
06:15is that if you want to have a vibrant market,
06:19every customer, every user, you and me,
06:21we have a responsibility to make this market work.
06:25So I think it's very important to remember that,
06:28that choice and exhausting choice
06:31is an important responsibility that we all have for the market to work.
06:36Now, on your precise question,
06:39whether a sufficient number of people are choosing alternative,
06:44I would say, clearly not the majority,
06:47clearly not the majority.
06:49And why?
06:50Is it because there are too many friction?
06:54Or is it because the alternative products are not good enough?
06:58But at least it means that the existing gatekeeper
07:02are obliged to innovate all the time
07:04because they know that as soon as they don't do it,
07:07people can and therefore will go elsewhere.
07:12So allowing competitors into their ecosystem
07:15could ultimately force the gatekeepers to innovate.
07:18And for corporations thinking about the bottom line,
07:21that might be a scary prospect.
07:23In the end, it will come down to money,
07:26as it so often does.
07:27Europe is an important market for Apple,
07:30making up around a third of its sales.
07:32And that might finally be the ace
07:34up the European Commission's sleeve.
07:36I think the Commission would point to the fact
07:42that it is, to an extent, a privilege
07:47to be able to operate in the European single market.
07:50You have access to hundreds of millions of paying consumers.
07:53So if you are a technology provider,
07:55a foreign technology provider,
07:57it's in your interest to want to come to a solution
08:00that you can roll out in the EU.
08:03And in past instances,
08:06we have seen other gatekeepers or technology companies
08:11eventually roll out solutions in Europe,
08:15even if there may have been a bit of hesitation at first.
08:19I would not be surprised sincerely that at some point
08:22it will be, they will find,
08:23they will find an agreement
08:24because Apple has an economic interest to do it.
08:27And the Commission has also a political interest to do it.
08:32And the Commission so far
08:33has been relatively pragmatic in its approach.
08:36So in the end,
08:37is the Digital Markets Act helping or hurting the consumers?
08:40I see that sometimes the consumer journey
08:44has been degraded because of the DMA.
08:47That I can see.
08:48I can recognize.
08:50But the question is, why?
08:52Is it because of the DMA
08:54or is it because of the reluctance
08:56to the gatekeeper to implement the DMA correctly?
09:01And to me, on that, the jury is still out.
09:04I think sometimes the DMA
09:07sometimes is a bad compliance,
09:10a malicious compliance.
09:12Other part of the reason is that,
09:14yes, indeed, as I was saying,
09:15we will have to make more choice.
09:18And that is indeed an additional decision
09:22which we need to take.
09:24But I think it's to have a market,
09:27a democracy on market, if you want.
09:29So again, I want to go back to this comparison
09:31between democracy and dictatorship.
09:33In dictatorship, you never have to choose.
09:36So your life is easier to some extent,
09:38but it's probably not the best life you can have.
09:42That's it from me, Ola Alsaka, here in Berlin.
09:44Thanks for your company.
09:45And maybe we should give old Siri
09:46the last word this time
09:48with something she can handle.
09:50Hey, Siri, what's the weather like today?
09:53Looks like it will be partly cloudy today.
09:55Looks like it will be partly cloudy today.
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