Meta is prohibited from charging tech companies for offering their AI services via WhatsApp. Companies must be allowed to make their AI chatbots available on the messaging platform for free.

That’s what the European Commission instructed Meta in a Supplementary Statement of Objections, which was sent to the American tech company on April 15th.

In short, Meta is ordered to reinstate access to WhatsApp for third-party AI chatbots that were subjected to payments. By charging companies, the European Commission finds that Meta is blocking competitors from entering or expanding in the growing market for AI assistants.

In October 2025, Meta announced that it would change its policy and terms for WhatsApp, prohibiting third parties from communicating with customers via WhatsApp. As a result, competing AI chatbot providers were blocked from reaching their customers through WhatsApp, making Meta AI the only AI chatbot accessible to users on the platform.

“Artificial intelligence is bringing incredible innovations to consumers, and one of these is the emerging market of AI assistants. We must protect effective competition in this vibrant field, which means we cannot allow dominant tech companies to illegally leverage their dominance to give themselves an unfair advantage,” Teresa Ribera, Executive Vice-President for Clean, Just and Competitive Transition, said at the time.

In response, Meta decided to reinstate AI companies' access to WhatsApp in March. In exchange, they had to pay a subscription fee.

To prevent serious and irreparable harm to competition, the executive branch of the EU has now ordered Meta to reinstate access for third-party AI assistants under the same conditions as before the recent policy change, at least until it reaches a final decision on Meta’s conduct.

“Pushing out competitors in fast-evolving markets like AI is exactly the type of conduct that interim measures are designed to address. Replacing the legal ban with pricing that has a similar effect does not change our preliminary view that Meta’s conduct appears to be an abuse of its dominant position, that may seriously harm competition on the market for AI assistants,” Ribera said in a public statement this week.

Meta isn’t happy with this decision and feels that small and medium-sized businesses will be forced to pay the bill.

“The European Commission is proposing ​to use its ​regulatory powers to ⁠enable some of the largest companies in the world to use the paid-for WhatsApp Business product for free. This means that ​a small ⁠bakery in France paying to use the service to take croissant orders will be picking up the tab for OpenAI. Small European businesses shouldn’t foot OpenAI’s ⁠bill,” a Meta spokesperson told Reuters.

Italy has now been included in the European Commission’s inquiry as well. Initially, Italy was excluded because the antitrust authority launched its own investigation into Meta over installing its Meta AI assistant into WhatsApp without user consent.

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