According to TechCrunch, the European Commission announced an antitrust investigation on Thursday into Meta’s policy change that will ban rival AI chatbots from using WhatsApp’s business tools. The policy, altered in October and set to take effect in January, specifically targets general-purpose AI chatbots from providers like OpenAI, Perplexity, and Poke. The EU’s executive arm is concerned this move will prevent third-party AI services from reaching users in the European Economic Area while Meta’s own “Meta AI” remains accessible. Executive Vice-President Teresa Ribera stated the investigation aims to prevent “dominant digital incumbents” from crowding out competitors in the booming AI market. If found in breach of EU antitrust rules, Meta could be fined up to 10% of its global annual revenue, a penalty that could amount to billions.
The WhatsApp Wall
Here’s the thing: this isn’t about banning all AI from WhatsApp. Meta’s policy carve-out is pretty clever. It says businesses using AI for customer service? That’s fine. A retailer’s chatbot can stay. What’s not allowed is a standalone, general-purpose AI like ChatGPT using WhatsApp as a distribution channel. So, Meta is basically drawing a line between “utility” AI that serves a commercial transaction and “companion” AI that users might chat with for fun or help. The problem, as the EU sees it, is that by controlling the pipes—WhatsApp’s massive user base and its business API—Meta gets to decide who gets to play in the sandbox. And wouldn’t you know it, their own toy, Meta AI, gets the prime spot.
Bigger Than Just Chat
This probe is a huge signal. It shows the EU is ready to apply its hardline digital competition rulebook, honed on cases against Google and Apple, directly to the emerging AI arena. They’re not waiting for markets to mature and potentially solidify around a few gatekeepers. They’re acting preemptively, which is a big shift. The statement about preventing “irreparable harm to competition” is the key. The EU seems to think that if Meta locks down WhatsApp now, it could permanently shape how hundreds of millions of Europeans access and use AI, giving Meta AI an unassailable head start. It’s a bet that the infrastructure layer—the messaging apps—is just as critical to AI competition as the models themselves.
Meta’s Rock and a Hard Place
So, what’s Meta’s play? From their perspective, you can see a rationale. They might argue WhatsApp isn’t an open platform; it’s a private service. Letting a bunch of third-party AIs loose could lead to spam, misinformation, or just a crappy user experience they’d get blamed for. They’ve invested billions in building Meta AI, and they want a return. But that’s exactly the “abuse of dominance” argument the EU loves to tackle. They’ll say Meta is using its control over a essential communication service—a service many people and businesses feel they have to use—to unfairly advantage its new product in a separate market (AI). It’s a classic leveraging case. The fines are scary, but the potential remedies are worse. Could the EU force Meta to keep the WhatsApp API open to rivals? That would be a massive blow to its AI strategy.
The New Frontier
Basically, this is the first major regulatory skirmish over AI distribution channels. It won’t be the last. We’re going to see this pattern repeat: a giant with a massive existing user base (Meta with WhatsApp/Instagram/Facebook, Apple with iOS, Google with Search/Android) uses that reach to launch and favor its own AI, while restricting rivals. The EU is firing a warning shot that it will treat this as anti-competitive bundling. The outcome of this case will set a template. If the EU wins, it could force a more open, interoperable model for AI access within big apps. If Meta wins, it validates the walled-garden approach for the next technological wave. Either way, the battle lines for AI aren’t just being drawn in research labs or data centers. They’re being drawn in the terms of service for the apps we use every day. You can read the EU’s formal announcement here.
