Meta is the latest US-based tech giant to pause artificial intelligence releases in the European Union. The company joins Apple, who in June announced that it would be withholding several AI-powered iPhone features from customers in the EU.

Neither company, so far, has given a timeline or described what, exactly, needs to happen for the embargoes to lift, but both companies have cited “regulatory uncertainty” as the catalyst.

In a statement sent exclusively to Axios on July 17, a Meta spokesperson said:

"We will release a multimodal Llama model over the coming months, but not in the EU due to the unpredictable nature of the European regulatory environment."

As Cointelegraph recently reported, Apple gave a similar statement in June. Citing regulatory uncertainty at the time, the Cupertino company claimed that the EU’s Digital Markets Act (DMA) could “force us to compromise the integrity of our products in ways that risk user privacy and data security.”

EU laws

While the two cases are similar, the companies appear to be protesting different aspects of EU law. At the heart of Apple’s issue lies language in the DMA that requires so-called “gatekeepers” such as Meta and Apple to develop products and services in such a way that associated software works on rival platforms. This, essentially, is to stop one company from using proprietary technology to corral the consumer market.

Meta, however, seems to be concerned over language in the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) limiting how companies can utilize user-generated data.

Meta artificial intelligence

Meta was ordered by the Irish Data Protection Commission, the independent regulator responsible for enforcing GDPR, In June to pause its AI assistant rollout in the EU over data privacy concerns.

The company uses data generated by Facebook and Instagram users to train its AI models, however Meta claims it does so only with consent and that users have the option to opt-out.

According to Axios, Meta still intends to roll out future AI products — including an upcoming version of its Llama AI model that supports audio and video — in the United Kingdom. Despite the UK’s GDPR being nearly identical to the EU’s, Meta reportedly claimed that EU regulators were working much slower and that it foresaw no problems with its data collection policies in the UKs regulatory environment.