The European Commission has ordered Meta to restore free access to WhatsApp for rival general-purpose AI assistants and maintain it until the end of the Commission’s antitrust investigation.

Background

On 15 October 2025, Meta announced an update of its WhatsApp Business Solution Terms, effectively banning third-party general-purpose AI assistants from the application as of 15 January 2026.

On 4 December 2025, the Commission opened formal proceedings in the context of this ongoing investigation and on 9 February 2026 sent a Statement of Objections notifying Meta that its conduct appears at first sight to be in breach of EU competition rules.

On 4 March 2026, Meta published a revised policy, reversing the ban but introducing a pricing framework applicable to third-party general-purpose AI assistants. The Commission considered that prices amount to a de facto refusal to supply and sent a Supplementary Statement of Objections, setting out the Commission’s intention to order Meta to reinstate third-party AI assistants’ access to WhatsApp under the same conditions as before its policy change of 15 October 2025.

However, in June 2026, the Commission went further and adopted interim measures requiring Meta to go further and grant competing AI assistants free access to the WhatsApp Business API¹.

a) The interim measures

The Commission concluded that interim measures were warranted to prevent harm in the growing market for general-purpose AI assistants. It found, on a prima facie basis, that:

• Meta holds a dominant position in consumer communication apps in the EEA.
• Meta abused this position by excluding competing AI assistants from the WhatsApp Business API. This behaviour constituted a refusal to provide access to an infrastructure developed for and previously open to third parties.
• Although Meta later reintroduced access, the fees imposed were considered equivalent to a de facto ban.

b) Meta’s position

Meta has strongly criticised the Commission’s intervention, describing the interim measures as “regulatory overreach” and warning that they effectively force the company to provide free access to its WhatsApp infrastructure to competing AI firms, including some of the largest players in the market.

The company argues that this approach distorts competitive incentives and amounts to subsidising rivals. It has also challenged the Commission’s underlying analysis, contending that WhatsApp should not be considered a critical gateway for AI distribution, as consumers can access competing AI services through a range of alternative channels such as mobile apps, web browsers, and operating systems.

Assessment

While the Commission’s rationale is broadly persuasive, particularly given the risk of early market tipping in fast‑moving AI ecosystems, the scope of the interim measures raises legitimate concerns. The requirement to grant free access, rather than restoring pre‑January 2026 conditions, may go beyond what is strictly necessary to preserve competition, especially in the absence of a clear timeline for concluding the investigation.

This, in turn, prompts questions about whether such intervention could dampen incentives to invest and innovate, both for platform operators and third‑party developers.

More broadly, the case is a notable illustration of the Commission’s continued reliance on Article 102 TFEU, rather than the DMA, as a flexible enforcement tool in novel settings.

While the conduct at issue could overlap with DMA-type concerns (such as access, interoperability, and self‑preferencing), the Commission has chosen to proceed under Article 102, which allows it to develop and pursue complex and evolving theories of harm, including foreclosure risks linked to control over AI distribution channels, without being constrained by predefined obligations. This approach also enables the use of interim measures, offering a faster and more adaptable response in dynamic markets. As such, the case highlights how Article 102 continues to play a complementary role alongside the DMA, particularly in emerging areas like AI where the contours of competition are still taking shape.

1. The WhatsApp for Business API is the interface through which businesses connect their own systems to WhatsApp ↩︎