The EU is tough to get into for major technology leaders. Don’t you agree? Apple is blocked from rolling out their new features including AI (announced a few days back at the WWDC) in the European Union.

What’s the problem?

The story goes that the EU weren’t happy with Apple, and kind of, tells them, “Hey! Listen you are not following all the rules. There’s some dos and don’ts which you need to verify again. If you go like this, you are going to make it difficult for our local companies. We expect fair competition to our startups. So come back, after you have followed these rules”. The conversations might have gone something like that but yeah, a bit more professional. Now, the Apple feels sad that they have to do something about this.

Digital Market Act(DMA) protects the local startups from big tech companies. These big tech companies, commonly called as Gatekeepers, include Apple, Meta, Google etc. Now, if Apple has to comply with the rules, it seems they have to compromise in their products which in turn might risk privacy and data security. So, for the time being, Apple had to withhold its launch in the regions.

Apple Intelligence features include prioritizing notifications, summarizing, proofreading your posts, styling images, searching your photos, improved voice command, a new Siri with ChatGPT integration, and many more. It was planned to release later this year.

Is it important?

Remember, we are talking about the entire Europe, and this might frustrate dedicated users who were desperately waiting to use these new technologies. Only last week, we discussed how Meta paused its AI training after NYOC filed complaints over privacy concerns. As I have mentioned in the past too, these regulations are important. In this case, to safeguard the local companies. This would ensure the market is not always dominated by the top leaders. Also, regulating at earlier stages of AI means it would not be messier later. Of course, EU must also ensure that all these rules don’t hinder their opportunities to catch the AI train. Hopefully, the regulators and gatekeepers will work hand-in-hand to arrive at a solution as early as possible.  

^{Featured Image by Erwan Hesry on Unsplash and edited by author}