EU plans antitrust action, may force Meta to restore rival AI on WhatsApp

The European Commission said on Wednesday it intended to order Meta Platforms to reinstate rival artificial intelligence (AI) assistants on its WhatsApp messaging service after the US tech giant imposed an access fee.  

“The Commission notified Meta that the revised policy seems to have the same effect of excluding third-party AI assistants from WhatsApp and thus appears at first sight to be in breach of EU (European Union) competition rules,” the EU’s executive arm said. 

“To prevent serious and irreparable harm to competition, the Commission intends to order Meta to reinstate access for third-party AI assistants under the same conditions as before 15 October 2025,” it added in a statement. Meta informed the Commission in March that it would allow rival AI assistants on WhatsApp for a year, contingent on a fee, after earlier planning to ban third-party AI chatbots from WhatsApp Business. 

 

Under EU rules, competition regulators can order companies to temporarily stop suspect business practices, but these demands can be challenged in the bloc’s courts in Luxembourg. Eventual fines for breaching the EU antitrust rulebook can be as high as 10 per cent of global annual revenue, although they rarely reach that level, especially if alleged wrongdoing is short-lived. 

“The European Commission is proposing to use its regulatory powers to enable some of the largest firms in the world to use the paid-for WhatsApp Business product for free,” a Meta spokesperson said in an emailed statement.  “This means that a small bakery in France paying to use the service to take croissant orders will be picking up the tab for OpenAI,” the spokesperson added.  

The Commission also said that its investigation had been expanded to Italy, where the Italian competition watchdog had opened its own probe last year.