EU investigating Meta over policy change that bans rival AI chatbots from WhatsApp
Meta’s decision to serve only its AI chatbot, Meta AI, to WhatsApp users isn’t sitting well with the competition regulators in Europe. The European Commission on Thursday said it is launching an antitrust investigation into Meta’s move to ban other AI companies from using WhatsApp’s business tools to offer their own AI chatbots to users on the app.
WhatsApp in October changed its business API policy to ban general-purpose chatbots from the chat app, saying that the API isn’t designed to be a platform for the distribution of chatbots. The policy change, which goes into effect in January, would affect the availability of AI chatbots from the likes of OpenAI, Perplexity, and Poke on the app.
Notably, this move doesn’t affect businesses that are using AI to serve customers on WhatsApp. For instance, a retailer running an AI-powered customer service bot won’t be barred from using the API. Only AI chatbots like ChatGPT are prohibited from being distributed via the API.
In its statement, the EU’s executive arm said it was concerned that the policy may “prevent third-party AI providers from offering their services through WhatsApp in the European Economic Area (‘EEA’).”
“As a result of the new policy, competing AI providers may be blocked from reaching their customers through WhatsApp. On the other hand, Meta’s own AI service ‘Meta AI’ would remain accessible to users on the platform,” the Commission wrote.
“AI markets are booming in Europe and beyond. We must ensure European citizens and businesses can benefit fully from this technological revolution and act to prevent dominant digital incumbents from abusing their power to crowd out innovative competitors,” Teresa Ribera, executive vice-president for Clean, Just and Competitive Transition at the European Commission, said in a statement.
“This is why we are investigating if Meta’s new policy might be illegal under competition rules, and whether we should act quickly to prevent any possible irreparable harm to competition in the AI space,” Ribera said.
If Meta is found guilty of breaching EU’s antitrust rules, it may be fined up to 10% of its global annual revenue, and the Commission may impose additional measures on the company.
WhatsApp, for its part, called the EU’s claims “baseless,” and said people have many other options to use rival AI companies’ chatbots.
“The emergence of AI chatbots on our Business API puts a strain on our systems that they were not designed to support,” a spokesperson for WhatsApp said in an emailed statement. “Even still, the AI space is highly competitive and people have access to the services of their choice in any number of ways, including app stores, search engines, email services, partnership integrations, and operating systems.”
Ram is a financial and tech reporter and editor. He covered North American and European M&A, equity, regulatory news and debt markets at Reuters and Acuris Global, and has also written about travel, tourism, entertainment and books.
You can contact or verify outreach from Ram by emailing ram.iyer@techcrunch.com.
