Meta warned EU plans to impose measures to reverse WhatsApp AI policy
European Commission announced Meta plans to implement “temporary measures” to prevent the tech giant from excluding third-party AI assistants from WhatsApp.
On Monday, the EU told the company its preliminary view was that it had “violated” EU antitrust rules. The commission said the investigation was still ongoing and measures were subject to Meta’s response and the rights of the defense.
The bloc’s Competition Commissioner Teresa Ribera said this would prevent “dominant tech companies from unlawfully using their dominance to give themselves an unfair advantage” in order to preserve “effective competition”.
“AI markets are evolving rapidly, so we need to be swift in our actions. We are therefore considering quickly imposing interim measures on Meta to protect competitors’ access to WhatsApp while the investigation is ongoing and to avoid Meta’s new policy that irreparably harms competition in Europe,” he added.
The Commission announced in October that Meta had “effectively” banned third-party general-purpose AI assistants from the app in WhatsApp Business Solution Terms. The policy went into effect in January.
Interim measures will include asking Meta to maintain third-party AI assistants’ access to WhatsApp under conditions before the policy change while the investigation continues, a commission spokesperson told CNBC.
“The truth is that there is no reason for the EU to interfere with the WhatsApp Business API,” a Meta spokesperson said.
“There are numerous AI options and people can use them from app stores, operating systems, devices, websites and industry partnerships. The Commission’s logic incorrectly assumes that the WhatsApp Business API is a key distribution channel for these chatbots,” they added.
Major US tech companies have been hit with multiple fines for violating EU rules in 2025.
In April, Apple was fined 500 million euros after it was found to have breached anti-routing obligations.
The same month, Meta was fined €200 million for breaching its obligations to offer consumers a service option that uses less of their personal data.
In September, the Commission fined Google 2.95 billion euros for violating antitrust rules on online advertising.
