Meta Is Keeping Its Next Big AI Update Out of the EU
So far, the EU’s increasing regulations on big tech have threatened Apple, Meta, and Microsoft with fines in the billions, plus forced Apple to allow third-party app stores and payment methods in the EU. Companies looking to operate in the region have little choice but to cooperate, but Facebook parent company Meta has a solution: It’s taking its ball and going home.
In a statement to The Verge, Meta spokesperson Kate McLaughlin said that the company’s next-gen Llama AI model is skipping Europe, placing the blame squarely on regulations. “We will release a multimodal Llama model over the coming months,” Mclaughlin said, “but not in the EU due to the unpredictable nature of the European regulatory environment.”
A multimodal model is one that can incorporate data between multiple mediums, like video and text, and use them together while calculating. It makes AI more powerful, but also gives it more access to your device.
The move actually follows a similar decision from Apple, which said in June that it would be holding back Apple Intelligence in the EU due to the Digital Markets Act, or DMA, which puts heavy scrutiny on certain big tech “gatekeepers,” Apple and Meta both among them.
Meta’s concerns here could be less related to the DMA and more to the new AI Act, which recently finalized compliance deadlines and will force companies to make allowances for copyright and transparency starting August 2, 2026. Certain AI use cases, like those that try to read the emotions of schoolchildren, will also be banned. As the company tries to get a hold of AI on its social media platforms, increasing pressure is the last thing it needs.
How this will affect AI-forward Meta products like Ray-Ban smart glasses remains to be seen. Meta told The Verge that future multimodal AI releases will continue to be excluded from Europe, but that text-only model updates will still come to the region.
While the EU has yet to respond to Meta’s decision, EU competition regulator Margrethe Vestager previously called Apple’s plan to keep Apple Intelligence out of the EU a “stunning open declaration” of anticompetitive behavior.
Meta AI EU is avoiding release in Europe due to the unpredictable nature of the region's regulatory environment, specifically mentioning the AI Act and its August 2026 compliance deadlines. The EU's tech regulations have also led to similar decisions from tech giants, such as Apple's holding back of Apple Intelligence in the EU.
