Meta's chat app, WhatsApp changed its policy regarding business API this week to ban general-purpose chatbots from its platform. This move is likely to impact WhatsApp-backed assistants from companies like OpenAI, Perplexity, Khosla Ventures Luziaand powered by General Catalyst Poke.
The company has added a new section for “AI providers” in its business API terms, focusing on general-purpose chatbots. The terms, which will come into effect on January 15, 2026, state that Meta will not allow AI model providers to distribute their AI assistants on WhatsApp.
Providers and developers of artificial intelligence or machine learning technologies, including but not limited to large language models, generative artificial intelligence platforms, general purpose artificial intelligence assistants or similar technologies as determined by Meta in its sole discretion (“AI Providers”), are strictly prohibited from accessing or using the WhatsApp Business Solution, directly or indirectly, to provide, provide, offer, sell or otherwise making such technologies available where such technologies constitute essential (and not incidental or ancillary) functionality provided for your use, in Meta's sole discretion.
Meta confirmed this move to TechCrunch and specified that it does not impact companies using AI to serve customers on WhatsApp. For example, a travel company using a customer service bot will not be deprived of access to the service.
The meta justifies this move by saying that WhatsApp Business API is intended for companies serving customers, and does not function as a platform for distributing chatbots. The company said it had observed an unforeseen use case for general-purpose chatbots while building an API for business-to-business use in recent months.
“The goal of the WhatsApp Business API is to help businesses provide customer service and send relevant updates. We are focused on supporting the tens of thousands of businesses that are building these experiences on WhatsApp,” a Meta spokesperson said in a comment to TechCrunch.
Meta found that new chatbot use cases placed significant strain on the system due to the increased volume of messages and required a different type of support, which the company was not ready for. The company prohibits use cases beyond the “intended design and strategic purpose” of the API.
This move will effectively make WhatsApp unavailable as a platform for distributing AI solutions such as assistants or agents. This also means that Meta AI is the only assistant available in the chat app.
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Last year, OpenAI launched ChatGPT on WhatsApp, and earlier this year Perplexity has launched its own bot on a chat app to connect with a user base of over 3 billion people. Both bots could respond to queries, understand media files, answer questions about them, respond to voice notes, and generate images. This probably generated a lot of news.
However, the meta had a bigger problem. WhatsApp business interface is one of the main ways for the chatting app to make money. Companies are charged based on various message templates such as marketing, usability, authentication, and support. Since no chatbots were envisioned in this API project, WhatsApp could not charge them.
Mark Zuckerberg on Meta's Q1 2025 earnings call he noticed that business news is a great opportunity for the company to increase revenues.
“Currently, the vast majority of our business is driven by advertising on our Facebook and Instagram feeds,” he said. “But WhatsApp now has over 3 billion (active users) per month, with over 100 million people in the US and growing rapidly there. Over a billion people also use Messenger every month, and Instagram now sends as many messages a day as Messenger. Business messaging should be the next pillar of our business.”
