The next big upgrade to the assistant built into your phone is being shaped a long way from Kuala Lumpur. In Europe, regulators are prying smartphones open so that people can choose which artificial intelligence runs on their device. In Malaysia, that choice is not on the table, and the reason has little to do with the technology itself.
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What Europe just did
The European Commission is using its Digital Markets Act to force the two companies that sit behind almost every phone into loosening their grip on AI. Reports on 16 July said the Commission has ordered Google to give rival AI apps the same deep access to Android that its own Gemini assistant already has, including voice activation, the ability to read what is on the screen, and access to on-device features, by July 2027. Google was also told to begin sharing anonymised Google Search data with approved competitors from January 2027.
Apple went the other way. Rather than open up, it said it will not bring its new Siri AI to iPhones and iPads in the European Union at all. According to CNN, the company argued that the interoperability rules would force it to give assistants access to sensitive personal data, and framed the move as a privacy and security decision. The result is an odd split in the same month: Europe gains choice on Android and loses a feature on iPhone.
What it means for Malaysian phones
Malaysia sits on both sides of that divide. StatCounter put Android at 59.81 percent of Malaysian phones in June 2026 and iOS at 39.99 percent, a near even split that is unusual for the region. Roughly six in ten local users are on the platform Europe is prying open, and four in ten are on the one Apple is now treating differently depending on where you live.
Here is the catch. Malaysia has no equivalent of the Digital Markets Act, so none of these obligations apply here. Malaysian Android users do not get the guaranteed right to replace Gemini with another assistant that Europeans will have in 2027. Malaysian iPhone users, meanwhile, are still on Apple's list to receive the new Siri AI, which Technave reports is due locally in the third quarter of 2026. So Malaysia could end up with the Apple feature Europe is being denied, while missing the Android freedom Europe is being handed.
Why Malaysia ends up a rule-taker
The pattern is a familiar one. When it comes to phone AI, Malaysians largely receive whatever Google and Apple decide to ship worldwide, plus whatever a large market like the EU manages to pry loose. Local rules are moving, but on a different track. Malaysia's AI Governance Bill, which we covered here, takes a broad, risk-based approach to how AI is used rather than a competition tool that dictates how phone makers must open their platforms. Agencies such as MCMC and the MyDigital office have no DMA-style lever to demand that assistants work with each other.
There is a catch closer to home too. Apple Intelligence has technically run on Malaysian iPhones since late 2024, but only in United States English, and Bahasa Melayu is still not supported in the current release. Even the AI that does arrive can feel as though it was built for somewhere else. We asked a similar question when the new Siri was first revealed, in this piece.
The takeaway
Europe is testing whether a government can force open the AI layer of a phone. Malaysia is not running that test, so for now the answer to who picks the assistant on your screen is set in Mountain View, Cupertino and Brussels rather than here. The thing to watch is whether Google extends any of that new openness beyond the borders where it is legally required, because that, more than any local law, will decide what Malaysians actually get.
Images courtesy of Zulfugar Karimov and Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash.