EU moves to curb Meta’s exclusion of rival AI services from WhatsApp

Brussels has escalated enforcement against Meta by issuing formal charges that allege the company is using its market power to shut out competing AI chat services from WhatsApp. Regulators signalled they could impose short‑term legal constraints designed to prevent irreversible harm to competitors while a substantive investigation proceeds. The EU action sits alongside national measures: in Italy Meta has published per‑message fees for bots using the WhatsApp Business API as a condition for limited third‑party access, illustrating how regulatory concessions can be converted into localized commercial terms. At the same time, other regulatory developments — such as the EU’s classification of WhatsApp’s Channels broadcast feature under online content rules and active legal scrutiny of Meta’s data practices in India — amplify the operational and compliance burdens on the company. Meta contests the premise of the EU charges, arguing many AI offerings are available through alternative distribution routes and framing recent pricing as cost recovery for moderation and infrastructure. Regulators counter that control of a dominant messaging service can be decisive for market access and that platform changes can quickly entrench a favoured assistant and marginalise third‑party developers. The Commission’s readiness to seek provisional remedies reflects a shift toward quicker protective steps when platform modifications risk foreclosing markets. Legal outcomes will hinge on Meta’s procedural responses and on courts’ willingness to balance the company’s rights of defence with the need to preserve competition. For developers and startups building conversational AI, the combination of European enforcement, national fee structures, and parallel judicial proceedings abroad creates uncertainty about where and how bots can operate profitably. For Meta, the inquiry raises the prospect of enforced interoperability, access obligations or tighter product constraints that could curb its ability to preferentially route users to internal AI services. The broader implication is a tightening regulatory environment in which dominant digital platforms face faster, precautionary remedies and overlapping obligations across jurisdictions, complicating product design, moderation work and business models for AI features.