Italy has ordered Meta to suspend a policy that prohibits companies from using WhatsApp's business tools to offer their own AI chatbots on the popular chat app.
On Wednesday, the Italian competition authority (AGCM). he said in an ongoing investigation into whether Meta had abused its dominant position in the market, found sufficient reason to offer its Meta AI chatbot on WhatsApp to order the suspension of the policy.
“Meta's conduct appears to constitute an abuse as it may restrict production, market access or technical development in the market for AI Chatbot services to the detriment of consumers,” the office wrote. “Moreover, during the course of the investigation, Meta's conduct may cause serious and irreparable harm to competition in the affected market, undermining competitiveness.”
In November, the AGCM expanded the scope of its existing investigation into Meta after the company in October it changed its business API policy to prohibit the offering of general-purpose chatbots in a chat application via an API.
Meta argued that its API was not designed as a chatbot distribution platform and that outside of WhatsApp, people had more opportunities to use third-party AI bots. The policy change, which will come into effect in January, will impact the availability of AI chatbots such as OpenAI, Perplexity and Poke in the app.
This rule does not affect companies using AI to serve customers via WhatsApp. For example, a retailer using an AI-powered customer service bot will not be prohibited from using the API. Only AI chatbots such as ChatGPT or Claude cannot be distributed via API.
The European Commission this month also launched an investigation into the new policy, raising concerns that it may “prevent third-party AI providers from offering their services via WhatsApp within the European Economic Area (“EEA”).)
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Calling the Authority's decision “fundamentally wrong,” Meta said WhatsApp's business API is not a route to market for AI companies.
“The emergence of AI chatbots in our Business API has placed a burden on our systems that they were not designed to handle. The Italian authorities assume that WhatsApp is, in a sense, a de facto app store. The route to market for AI companies is through the app stores themselves, their websites and industry partnerships, not the WhatsApp business platform. We will appeal,” Meta said in an emailed statement.
Note: This story has been updated to include Meta's response to this decision.
