Meta Gets EU Antitrust Order to Open WhatsApp to Rival AI Chatbots — Update

By Edith Hancock

The European Union told Meta Platforms to reverse a policy that effectively bans rival artificial intelligence chatbots from using a tool to communicate with users on WhatsApp as officials continue to probe the company's messaging service.

The order marks the latest step from the European Commission--the EU's executive arm--in its competition probe into Meta's AI practices after the company updated its WhatsApp business terms last year.

Officials started investigating the company in December over what they called concerns that the changes unfairly squeezed out competitors. The policy stopped generative AI companies from accessing the company's WhatsApp for Business Application Programming Interface--or API--while still letting Meta's own AI services use it. The API tool allows companies to use WhatsApp to do things like send order notifications.

The commission can impose so-called interim measures--essentially an injunction--on companies while investigations are progressing to prevent what officials see as further harm to a particular market.

A spokesperson for Meta said the company would appeal the decision, calling it regulatory overreach that boiled down to the commission allowing some of the world's largest companies to use the paid WhatsApp Business product for free.

Meta first offered to let competing AI assistants use its WhatsApp business software for a fee in March this year in a bid to appease the commission, and then offered access free of charge for one month in May. The commission said that the fee offer is equivalent to the previous access ban.

"In rapidly evolving markets, competition can be lost long before a final decision is adopted. This is why these interim measures will remain in place for the duration of the investigation, in order to prevent harm that would be almost impossible to repair," Teresa Ribera, the EU's competition chief, said in a statement on Tuesday. She also said to reporters in Brussels that the fee Meta had proposed in its first offer was too high.

Write to Edith Hancock at edith.hancock@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

June 09, 2026 12:59 ET (16:59 GMT)