EU orders Meta to restore rival AI access on WhatsApp

Meta was ordered to reopen WhatsApp to rival AI chatbots, a rare move by Brussels aimed at preventing one company from controlling access to a major consumer gateway for general-purpose AI assistants. The European Commission said Meta must restore the pre-October 2025 terms on the WhatsApp Business API within five working days while regulators continue their antitrust investigation.

The decision centers on a change Meta told the Commission about on 15 October 2025, when the company said it would update its WhatsApp Business Solution Terms to exclude third-party general-purpose AI assistants. Since 15 January 2026, Meta AI has been the only AI assistant available on WhatsApp in the European Economic Area, pushing competitors out of a platform with enormous reach. The Commission said that could block rivals from entering or expanding in a market it described as rapidly growing, and that WhatsApp is an important entry point for AI assistants seeking consumers.

Brussels opened formal proceedings on 4 December 2025 after complaints from The Interaction Company of California, developer of the Poke.com assistant, the French startup Agentik, and a Spanish rival. It followed that with a Statement of Objections on interim measures on 9 February 2026. The Commission said the emergency order was needed “to prevent serious and irreparable damage to competition” and said it had likely found Meta dominant in consumer communication applications in the EEA, especially through WhatsApp.

Meta briefly lifted the outright ban in March 2026 but began charging rivals a fee, which the Commission said still locked them out. Under the order, the company must restore access on the same terms and conditions that applied before October 2025. Meta said the measure was “regulatory overreach,” argued that WhatsApp’s business interface was never built for AI chatbots, and said competitors could reach users through app stores and other channels. The company said it would appeal.

The clash raises a larger question for Europe and for users inside the world’s biggest messaging platforms: whether a dominant company can reserve the AI layer for its own assistant while rivals are shut out of the place where consumers already spend their time. It is only the second time in more than two decades that the Commission has used this emergency power, and the first time in 17 years that it has done so against Meta.

The company now faces potential fines of up to 10% of global annual revenue if it is found to have breached EU competition rules. The case lands amid broader pressure on Meta in Europe, including a reported €200 million fine under digital market rules that the company is also appealing, and parallel actions in Italy and Brazil. Italy’s probe was folded into the EU investigation just before the Commission’s decision, after the Italian Competition Authority imposed interim measures in December 2025 and Brazilian authorities reportedly forced Meta to reopen access there in March 2026.