The European Commission is taking urgent measures following the exclusion of competing AI from WhatsApp
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The European Commission warns that Meta's decision to allow only its own AI assistant on WhatsApp risks causing serious and irreparable harm to competition in the emerging AI assistant market.
The European Commission has notified Meta regarding possible interim measures aimed at reversing the exclusion of third-party AI assistants from WhatsApp, preliminarily assessing that this practice may violate the European Union's antitrust rules and could severely affect competition in a market that is in full development.
In short
1. The Commission has sent Meta a Statement of Objections regarding possible interim measures.
2. From January 15, 2026, only the Meta AI assistant will be available on WhatsApp.
3. The Commission preliminarily considers that Meta is dominant in the communication applications market.
4. WhatsApp is classified as an essential access point for AI assistants.
5. Interim measures are being analyzed due to the risk of serious and irreparable harm to competition.
According to the European Commission, Meta would have excluded general-purpose AI assistants from third parties from accessing and interacting with WhatsApp users, as a result of a change in the WhatsApp Business Solution terms. The update was announced by Meta on October 15, 2025, and came into effect on January 15, 2026, at which point the only AI assistant available on WhatsApp became Meta AI.
The European executive has sent Meta a Statement of Objections in which it expresses its preliminary opinion that this conduct "appears, at first glance, to violate EU competition rules" and risks blocking the entry or expansion of competitors in the rapidly developing AI assistant market.
The Commission preliminarily concludes that Meta "is likely to hold a dominant position in the consumer communication applications market in the European Economic Area," especially through WhatsApp, and that it could abuse this dominant position by refusing to allow access to other companies, including third-party AI assistants.
In its assessment, the Commission emphasizes that WhatsApp represents "an important access point that allows general-purpose AI assistants to reach consumers," and the exclusion of competitors risks raising significant barriers to entry and irreversibly marginalizing smaller players in an emerging market.
Considering these risks, the Commission intends to impose interim measures to prevent "serious and irreparable harm to competition," subject to Meta's right to respond to the allegations and to exercise its right to defense. The transmission of the Statement of Objections does not anticipate the final outcome of the investigation.
The Executive Vice-President of the European Commission, Teresa Ribera, stated that "artificial intelligence brings remarkable innovations for consumers, and one of these is the emerging market for AI assistants" and emphasized that "we must protect effective competition in this dynamic field, which means we cannot allow dominant tech companies to exploit their position illegally to gain an unfair advantage."
She added that "AI markets are developing at a rapid pace, so we must act quickly," which is why the Commission "is considering the rapid imposition of interim measures against Meta, to maintain competitors' access to WhatsApp during the investigation and to prevent Meta's new policy from irreparably affecting competition in Europe."
The case concerns the European Economic Area, with the exception of Italy, where the national competition authority has already imposed interim measures against Meta in December 2025. The Commission's investigation was officially opened on December 4, 2025, and is based on Article 102 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union and Article 54 of the Agreement on the European Economic Area.
Article 102 TFEU prohibits the abuse of a dominant position that may affect trade and competition in the internal market. Regulation 1/2003 allows the European Commission to impose interim measures when there is, at first glance, a violation of competition rules and a risk of serious and irreparable harm. The adoption of such measures does not prejudice the final conclusions of the substantive investigation.
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