Apple Intelligence reportedly coming to China in December, but without Siri AI

Apple Intelligence is set to launch in China in December, according to Bloomberg, but it will not include Siri AI or some advanced features. A South China Morning Post report earlier confirmed that Chinese regulators had approved the use of Alibaba’s AI models to power the feature following a July preliminary approval. Apple Intelligence will debut as part of an upcoming iOS 27.3 update in China, but it will lack the new Siri AI assistant and other recently announced features.

Apple had to adapt its approach due to China’s strict regulations governing AI-generated content, security assessments, and algorithm registration. To secure approval, the company worked with Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., incorporating guardrails that enable the government to review ongoing updates to the AI models. Baidu Inc. is also collaborating with Apple on search-related features.

While Apple Intelligence will offer Genmoji for custom emojis, AI-powered notification summaries, writing tools, and the Photos Clean Up feature, certain image-generation tools and advanced text generation capabilities will be limited. Local smartphone manufacturers in China, such as Huawei, Xiaomi, Oppo, and Vivo, already offer AI capabilities, and it remains to be seen whether Apple Intelligence will succeed in the market.