Meta’s decision to only offer its AI chatbot Meta AI to WhatsApp users has not been well-received by European competition regulators. The European Commission announced Thursday that it will launch 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 changed its business API policy in October, banning general-purpose chatbots from its chat app, saying the API was not designed as a platform for chatbot distribution. The policy change, which goes into effect in January, will affect whether AI chatbots such as OpenAI, Perplexity, and Poke are available on apps.
Notably, this move does not affect companies that use AI to serve their customers on WhatsApp. For example, a retailer running an AI-powered customer service bot will not be prevented from using the API. Only AI chatbots like ChatGPT are prohibited from being distributed via API.
In a statement, the EU’s executive branch said it was concerned that the policy “could prevent third-party AI providers from offering services through WhatsApp within the European Economic Area (‘EEA’).”
“As a result of the new policy, competing AI providers may no longer be able to access customers through WhatsApp, while Meta’s proprietary AI service ‘Meta AI’ will remain accessible to users on the platform,” the commission wrote.
“The AI market is rapidly growing in Europe and beyond. We must take action to ensure European citizens and businesses fully benefit from this technological revolution and prevent dominant digital incumbents from abusing their power to exclude innovative competitors,” Teresa Rivera, executive vice president for a clean, fair and competitive transition at the European Commission, said in a statement.
“That is why we are investigating whether Meta’s new policy may be illegal under competition rules and whether we should act quickly to prevent the possibility of irreparable damage to competition in the AI field,” Rivera said.
If Meta is found guilty of violating EU antitrust laws, it could be fined up to 10% of its global annual revenue, and the European Commission could impose further measures on the company.
WhatsApp said the EU’s claims were “baseless” and said people had many other options to use chatbots from rival AI companies.
“The emergence of AI chatbots in our business APIs is putting a strain on our systems that they were not designed to support,” a WhatsApp spokesperson said in an emailed statement. “Still, the AI space is highly competitive, and people have many ways to access their preferred services, including app stores, search engines, email services, partnership integrations, and operating systems.”
