This Monday, the 9th, the European Commission notified the technological ‘giant’ Meta of possible precautionary measures to reverse the exclusion of third-party artificial intelligence (AI) assistants from the WhatsApp communications service, considering there to be an abuse of a dominant position.
“The European Commission has sent a statement of objections to Meta, in which it sets out its preliminary position that the company violated EU competition rules [União Europeia] by excluding third-party AI assistants from accessing and interacting with WhatsApp users”, says the community executive in a statement.
According to Brussels, “Meta’s conduct could block the entry or expansion of competitors in the rapidly growing AI assistant market.”
For this reason, the institution intends to “impose precautionary measures to prevent this change in policy from causing serious and irreparable damage to the market, without prejudice to Meta’s response and respect for its defense rights”, it is also mentioned.
Meta is the owner of the social networks Facebook and Instagram, as well as communication applications for consumers, such as WhatsApp and Messenger.
The company also operates online advertising services and virtual and augmented reality products and provides a general-purpose AI assistant, Meta AI.
Last October, the North American company announced an update to the terms of WhatsApp Business, which in practice, according to Brussels, prohibits third-party AI assistants in the application as only Meta AI is available.
Then, in December 2025, the European Commission announced a formal investigation to assess whether the new policy of technological ‘giant’ Meta, of restricted access for artificial intelligence providers to the WhatsApp conversation platform, violates European Union competition rules.
It now comes to the conclusion that “this policy change appears, at first glance, to violate EU competition rules”, given the alleged abuse of a dominant position in the European Economic Area market.
The sending of a statement of accusations regarding precautionary measures, published today, does not affect the final result of the investigation.
Meta can now respond to the European Commission’s concerns.
The Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union prohibits the abuse of a dominant position in the EU single market.
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