Meta’s decision to only offer its AI chatbot, Meta AI, to WhatsApp users does not sit well with competition regulators in Europe. The European Commission on Thursday he said is launching an antitrust investigation into Meta’s move to bar other AI companies from using WhatsApp’s business tools to offer their own AI chatbots to the app’s users.
WhatsApp in October changed its business API policy to ban general-purpose chatbots from the chat app, saying the API is not designed to be a platform for distributing chatbots. The policy change, which will take effect in January, will affect the availability of AI chatbots from OpenAI, Perplexity and Poke in the app.
Specifically, this move does not affect businesses that use artificial intelligence to serve customers on WhatsApp. For example, a retailer running an AI-powered customer service bot will not be banned from using the API. Only AI chatbots like ChatGPT are prohibited from being distributed through the API.
In its statement, the EU’s executive arm said it was concerned the policy could “prevent third-party AI providers from offering their services through WhatsApp in the European Economic Area (“EEA”).
“As a result of the new policy, competing AI providers may be blocked from reaching their customers through WhatsApp. On the other hand, Meta’s artificial intelligence service ‘Meta AI’ will remain accessible to users of the platform,” the Commission wrote.
“Artificial intelligence markets are booming in Europe and beyond. We need to ensure that European citizens and businesses can take full advantage of this technological revolution and act to prevent dominant digital incumbents from abusing their power to crowd out innovative competitors,” said Teresa Ribera, executive vice-president for Clean, Fair and Competitive Transition to the European Commission.
“This is why we are investigating whether Meta’s new policy may be illegal under competition rules and whether we need to act quickly to prevent any potential irreparable harm to competition in the AI space,” said Ribera.
If Meta is found guilty of breaching EU antitrust rules, it could be fined up to 10% of its global annual revenue and the Commission could impose additional measures on the company.
WhatsApp, for its part, called the EU’s claims “baseless” and said people have plenty of other options to use rival AI companies’ chatbots.
“The introduction of AI chatbots in our Business API places a burden on our systems that we were not designed to support,” a WhatsApp spokesperson said in an emailed statement. “Still, the AI space is highly competitive, and people are accessing the services of their choice in any number of ways, including app stores, search engines, email services, collaboration integrations and operating systems.”
