Brussels has fired a warning shot at Big Tech’s AI ambitions, ordering Meta to throw open WhatsApp’s gates to rival chatbots – and doing it in the middle of a still-unfinished antitrust probe.
What the EU says is at stake
For the European Commission, this isn’t about user perks; it’s about market structure. Regulators argue that by effectively allowing only Meta AI on WhatsApp, the company threatens “serious and irreparable harm” to competition in a “critically important” phase for the AI assistant market.1 WhatsApp’s Business API is a key distribution pipe to billions of users, and Brussels wants it treated like neutral plumbing, not a private fast lane.
The order forces Meta to restore the pre-October 2025 status quo within five working days and make API access free again, as it used to be, while the investigation continues.2 EU antitrust officials frame this as preserving “choice for citizens” on which AI they use in WhatsApp and safeguarding competition by keeping a major entry point open to smaller AI firms.2
How critics see Meta’s behavior
Opposition outlets cast the move as a belated correction to a power grab. They note that Meta blocked third‑party providers from the interfaces connecting external services to WhatsApp last October, cutting off “foreign” AI agents and leaving only Meta’s own assistant in place.1 When pressure mounted, Meta reopened the door—but slapped on fees that developers and regulators deem unsustainable, a de facto tollbooth on AI rivals.1
Meta’s pushback
Meta, for its part, is crying foul. The company has accused the Commission of “regulatory overreach” and is preparing an appeal against the order, arguing Brussels is micromanaging business models before the core case is even decided.2
In classic EU–US tech fashion, the clash is less about one app and more about who gets to define the rules of the AI era: regulators guarding “fair access” or platforms insisting on freedom to monetize their own ecosystems.