Meta won't offer its upcoming multimodal AI model and future AI models to European customers, citing regulatory uncertainties in the EU.
Meta plans to launch a multimodal Llama model in the coming months, but not in the EU, according to a statement to Axios. Meta cited "the unpredictable nature of the European regulatory environment" as the reason. Meta's AI assistant will also initially skip the EU release.
Meta aims to integrate these multimodal models, which can process video, audio, images, and text, into its products, including smartphones and Meta Ray-Ban Smart Glasses. This likely means these products won't be available in the EU, or will have reduced functionality.
A text-based version of Meta's largest Llama 3 model, scheduled for release in late July, will still be available in the EU. Future Llama 4 models, although released under an open-source license, won't be usable by EU companies. Non-European services based on Llama may also not be available in the EU.
Meta escalates AI conflict with EU
The move intensifies Meta's clash with EU privacy regulators, who have banned the company from training on EU customer data without explicit opt-in. Meta says it notified EU authorities of its plans months in advance and incorporated the minimal feedback it received.
Previously, Meta launched a large-scale EU user data collection campaign with an opt-out system. Users couldn't directly opt out of AI training with their data, but had to use a complicated form. Privacy advocates at Noyb criticized this approach, among other issues, and EU regulators heeded their concerns.
A Meta spokesperson told Axios that training on European data is crucial to ensure that products reflect regional terminology and culture. Meta pointed out that competitors like OpenAI and Google also train on European user data - which is true, but what Meta doesn't say is that this practice has not been explicitly approved by users or regulators.
Meta's decision follows Apple's recent announcement that it would not offer Apple Intelligence features in the EU due to regulatory concerns.
Both companies seem to believe that withholding their technology is an effective way of pressuring the EU to alter regulations in their favor. One problem is the lack of competitive alternatives within the EU. U.S. tech companies sense a potential dependency and are trying to capitalize on it early.
