The EU may force Meta to re-enable third-party AI chatbots on WhatsApp | Infinium-tech

Last year, Meta changed the WhatsApp Business Solutions terms in a way that severely limited what third-party AI chatbots are allowed to do (essentially, relegating them to customer support). The European Commission, realizing the potential issues, decided to look closely at this.

The investigation is still ongoing, but the Commission feels that it cannot wait for the conclusion of the full investigation as a delay could cause irreparable harm to competition in the market. “AI markets are evolving rapidly, so we also need to accelerate our action.” said Teresa Ribera, Executive Vice President of Clean, Just and Competitive Transformation.

Therefore, the Commission has come to a preliminary conclusion based on two key points: 1) Meta is likely to be the dominant player in WhatsApp communication apps and 2) banning third-party AI assistants would be an abuse of that dominant position.

Meta will have a chance to defend itself, but the Commission can still impose interim measures. Note that if this happens, it will not “prejudge” the case – Meta may still come out on top after a full investigation has been completed.

Meta said in an email bloomberg: “The Commission’s argument wrongly assumes that the WhatsApp Business API is a major distribution channel for these chatbots.”

OpenAI and Microsoft may not think so, seeing as how ChatGPT and Copilot got the boot and are no longer available on WhatsApp (as of January 15th).

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