TL;DR
The EU ordered Meta to restore WhatsApp access for rival AI assistants within five days, citing “serious and irreparable damage to competition.” Meta will appeal. The investigation has no deadline and fines could reach 10% of global revenue.
The European Commission has ordered Meta to “restore free access to WhatsApp for rival general purpose AI assistants” within five working days. The interim measures, announced on Tuesday, are designed to prevent what the Commission called “serious and irreparable damage to competition” in the AI assistant market.
Meta said it would appeal. The company described the order as a decision that “OpenAI and some of the largest companies in the world can use the paid-for WhatsApp Business product for free.”
What happened
Meta introduced changes to WhatsApp Business that critics said unfairly prevented rival AI providers from offering their services through the platform. The specifics of the restrictions have not been fully detailed in public filings, but the Commission found them serious enough to warrant interim measures before completing its investigation.
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Italy’s antitrust authority was the first to examine the issue. The Commission subsequently expanded its probe to cover the Italian market as well, taking jurisdiction over the case.
The penalty risk
If Meta fails to comply, it faces fines of up to 10% of global annual revenue plus daily penalties. EU fines seldom reach that ceiling, but the threat is not trivial: Meta’s 2025 revenue was approximately $187 billion.
The measures will remain in place for the duration of the investigation, which has no set deadline. “In rapidly evolving markets, competition can be lost long before a final decision is adopted,” EU competition chief Teresa Ribera said.
Meta’s EU track record
This is not Meta’s first collision with Brussels. In April 2025, the company was fined €200 million for allegedly breaching the Digital Markets Act. In November 2024, it was ordered to pay €798 million for tying Facebook Marketplace to its social network.
The cumulative regulatory burden on Meta in the EU now includes DMA enforcement, competition fines, privacy challenges under GDPR, and this new AI-specific intervention. US President Trump has threatened tariffs and export restrictions in retaliation for European regulation that he says unfairly targets American tech companies.
Why this matters for AI
WhatsApp has more than two billion users globally. For AI companies building business-facing assistants, access to WhatsApp Business is a distribution channel that no other messaging platform can replicate at the same scale.
Meta’s argument is that it should not be forced to give competitors free access to a paid product. The Commission’s argument is that blocking rivals from an essential platform harms competition in a market that is still forming. The interim order means the Commission does not have to wait years for a final ruling to prevent what it considers irreversible damage.
What is not yet clear
The Commission has not published the full details of Meta’s restrictive policies or named all the AI providers affected beyond OpenAI. The investigation has no deadline, and interim measures of this kind are rare in EU competition law, signalling the Commission considers the risk to the market urgent.
Meta’s appeal will test whether interim measures can survive judicial review when the underlying investigation is still open. If the order holds, it establishes a precedent that dominant platforms cannot exclude AI rivals from their business services during an investigation, even before a formal finding of wrongdoing.
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