On Thursday 4 December, the European Commission opened an antitrust investigation against Meta, which it suspects of distorting competition rules by integrating artificial intelligence into its messaging application WhatsApp.
Since October 2025, Meta has prohibited companies whose main product is an AI from using the ‘WhatsApp Business Solution’ tool, effectively preventing them from offering their services via messaging. In the Commission’s view, this policy could be used to limit access by AI providers competing with WhatsApp and constitute an abuse of a dominant position.
The Commission explains that several AI providers offer access to their own assistants via WhatsApp, allowing users to interact directly in the application with their chatbots.
“As a result of this new policy, competing AI providers could be prevented from reaching their customers via WhatsApp. On the other hand, Meta’s AI service, ‘Meta AI’, would remain accessible to the platform’s users”, explains the institution.
A WhatsApp spokesperson was quoted by AFP as saying: “These claims are baseless”. The changes are intended to offset the proliferation of AI chatbots using WhatsApp’s application programming interface (API) for businesses, which are putting “a strain on our systems”, when they were not designed to handle such a load, he justified.
Last April, Meta was fined €200 million as part of an investigation related to the Digital Markets Act (DMA) (see EUROPE 13626/2), a decision which the company has appealed (see EUROPE 13675/15).
Along with Apple, Meta has been fighting European regulations for many months, systematically challenging every announcement made by the Commission (see EUROPE 13651/3). The US administration is not to be outdone, and has consistently criticised European regulations on digital technologies, which it accuses of explicitly targeting these national champions (see EUROPE 13758/2).
Under WhatsApp’s new rules, AI providers already present on the platform have until 15 January to withdraw. (Original version in French by Isalia Stieffatre)