The European Fee has opened an antitrust probe into Meta after WhatsApp rewrote its guidelines to dam rival AI chatbots together with OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Microsoft’s Copilot.
The drawback is a WhatsApp coverage replace that bars AI suppliers from utilizing the platform’s enterprise API (the WhatsApp Enterprise Answer) to make their AI applied sciences the first service on provide. Companies like automated buyer assist stay allowed when AI is barely incidental or ancillary, however “offering, delivering, providing, promoting, or in any other case making obtainable” such applied sciences by way of the WhatsApp Enterprise Answer is prohibited when they’re the principle performance being made obtainable.
The replace was made in October 2025 and can apply to AI suppliers already on the platform from January 15, 2026.
The consequence has been an exodus of suppliers. On October 21, OpenAI directed customers to the ChatGPT app, noting that greater than 50 million customers had used ChatGPT on WhatsApp. “We’d have a lot most popular to proceed serving you on WhatsApp,” mentioned the money bonfire, earlier than blaming the coverage and phrases change for the transfer.
In November, Microsoft adopted swimsuit. It mentioned, “Copilot on WhatsApp has helped hundreds of thousands of individuals join with their AI companion in a well-recognized, on a regular basis setting,” however a transition was wanted as a result of WhatsApp’s coverage change.
The EC mentioned in a press launch that “On account of the brand new coverage, competing AI suppliers could also be blocked from reaching their prospects via WhatsApp. Alternatively, Meta’s personal AI service ‘Meta AI’ would stay accessible to customers on the platform.”
A WhatsApp spokesperson instructed The Register: “The claims are baseless.”
The spokesperson went on to level out that the corporate’s techniques weren’t designed to deal with the load positioned on them by AI chatbots via the Enterprise API, and that, regardless, there was greater than sufficient competitors within the AI house.
That’s one thing for the EC to determine. Teresa Ribera, EC Govt VP for Clear, Simply and Aggressive Transition, agreed that the AI market was certainly booming. Nevertheless, “We should guarantee European residents and companies can profit absolutely from this technological revolution and act to forestall dominant digital incumbents from abusing their energy to crowd out progressive opponents,” she mentioned within the EC’s launch.
The investigation’s opening wasn’t shocking, given WhatsApp’s dimension and the influence of the brand new guidelines on rival AI suppliers. The impact of the change is to forestall third-party AI suppliers from providing general-purpose chatbots via the WhatsApp Enterprise Answer, leaving Meta AI as the one consumer-facing, general-purpose assistant obtainable on the platform.
The EU has been working to curb the excesses of the tech giants, prompting US President Donald Trump to threaten retaliatory tariffs on any nation that dared to impose regulation on US tech firms.
Trump has but to touch upon the EC’s WhatsApp announcement via his normal social media orifices. ®
