Something happened in June that most people dismissed as just another Apple announcement. Apple unveiled its new Siri: the big, truly capable AI version. In the same breath, the corporation said: This won’t be available in the EU. Not a bit later, but indefinitely not at all. At the big Apple event on September 9, a striking number of features carried a small asterisk, indicating: not for the EU and not for China.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
My first reaction was honestly pretty unsophisticated: What, we don’t get this? They can’t do that, I want that feature. And a second later: Wait\u2014I’m in Switzerland, what applies here anyway? That brief moment contains the real issue. Because the question isn’t whether and when Siri comes to Europe. The question is much more fundamental: Who actually decides which AI you can use in your daily tools? You, or someone else, far away, in a dispute that has nothing to do with you? And this affects your marketing more directly than you think.<\/p>\n\n
Here are the facts briefly. Apple won’t ship the new Siri AI with the new iPhone and iPad versions in the EU, and not at all in China. There’s no timeline. Apple itself says it can’t name a date. Even developers in the EU aren’t allowed to test the new features. Apple cites the Digital Markets Act as the reason in Europe: the regulation forces the company to give other AI systems deep access to the device, which endangers security and privacy. The EU Commission sees it differently and has rejected Apple’s proposed solutions. In China, meanwhile, the launch depends on approval and data localization requirements. Apple explained the EU decision in its own newsroom<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n So it’s a dispute, and who is ultimately right isn’t even the point. The point is: at the end of this dispute are users who don’t get a feature. Not because they don’t want to pay for it, but because others decide who is allowed to use it. That is not sovereignty.<\/p>\n\n Now you might say: Doesn’t affect me, I’m in Switzerland. And indeed: in the official announcement, Apple lists the 27 EU countries, and Switzerland isn’t among them. So we’ll presumably get the new Siri. Still, I wouldn’t relax too soon. First, many Swiss SMEs work with customers, subsidiaries, or teams in the EU\u2014especially in Germany. What’s not available there becomes your problem as soon as you work across borders.<\/p>\n\n Second, this is a pattern, not an isolated case. This just became reality: a leading AI model was shut down overnight for everyone\u2014without warning. Anyone who had built on it was suddenly left stranded (I captured this in a short video<\/a>). Again, a technology that suddenly depends on a decision someone else makes\u2014not you. The real lesson: AI availability is no longer a given. It has become a decision, and in case of doubt, someone else makes that decision for you.<\/p>\n\n When we talk about digital sovereignty, it has almost always been about one question: Where is my data stored, and who could access it? An important question\u2014we’ve examined it using examples including a U.S. court ruling<\/a> and Claudeforce<\/a>. But the Siri case shows a second question that’s just as important: Do I even get the AI\u2014and under what conditions?<\/p>\n\n In practice, I’m seeing two variants of this at companies right now. The first: companies impose restrictions on themselves, quite rightly, because they don’t want to give up control of their customer data. So they voluntarily forgo AI features because the price would be giving up control over the data. The second: the AI features are there, but hidden behind a paywall or in the next-higher tier. You have the tool, but you only get the useful part for an extra fee. Large companies pay it easily, smaller SMEs often can’t afford it. In both cases, you don’t decide whether and how you use AI. Your provider decides: about availability, about the price, about access.<\/p>\n\n Now apply this to your marketing stack. Your big U.S. platforms aren’t blocked by the Digital Markets Act like Apple\u2014that would be false to claim. But the mechanism behind it is the same: you inherit your provider’s roadmap and framework conditions. Concretely, this means: if your tool introduces a new AI feature, it might come to Europe later, due to privacy regulations. Or only in the more expensive package. Or only with the AI model the provider chose for you, without you being able to choose. And the data this AI works with sits in a structure that doesn’t belong to you.<\/p>\n\nSwitzerland is not in the EU and yet it affects you<\/h2>\n\n
The new question isn’t “where does my data go”<\/h2>\n\n
Why this applies to your marketing tool just the same<\/h2>\n\n