Meta may be forced to reopen its messaging platform WhatsApp to rival AI services months after booting them off, following the European Commission’s call for their swift reinstatement.
The Commission’s intervention comes before it has completed its antitrust investigation, as it claims competition could be harmed before the case concludes. Meta has already embedded its own AI model more deeply into WhatsApp Business and is rapidly exploring other chatbot use cases within the messaging service.
“In rapidly evolving markets, competition can be lost long before a final decision is adopted,” said EC Commissioner for Competition Teresa Ribera in a press statement on Tuesday. “These interim measures will safeguard competition in the growing market for AI assistants, by preserving a key entry point to reach consumers in Europe – WhatsApp – and allowing AI companies to innovate, scale up and reach their full potential.”
All AI chatbots were kicked off WhatsApp late last year as Meta began transitioning away from the open-source, collaborative approach it had adopted during its early AI research. Microsoft announced it would pull Copilot from WhatsApp in January 2026, and other smaller players were unceremoniously booted off around that time.
Some smaller startups welcomed the decision, including AI startup Interaction and AI assistant Poke.com, which were both available on WhatsApp prior to their removal. The EC has given Meta five days to reinstate these apps and remove the ban, or it will almost certainly face fines.
Meta sees AI as a potential way for WhatsApp to finally start making some money. Even though it is the most popular messaging service on the planet, with over three billion users, it makes far less revenue for Meta than Facebook and Instagram. Attempts at a WhatsApp Plus subscription have not seen much interest, and WhatsApp Business remains a small revenue driver.
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Meta treading on thin ice with the commission
Failure to reinstate the rival services may also prove harmful to Meta’s antitrust case on the issue. Even though it seems unlikely that the EC will allow Meta to continue favoring its own AI services on WhatsApp, further fines and changes could be imposed if the social media giant is seen as resisting the commission’s decisions.
Google showed the value of getting on the EU’s good side early, announcing it would seek a deal with the bloc over parasite SEO before a probe was finished.
Meta is already in the EU’s purview, with WhatsApp Channels recently being added to the bloc’s Very Large Online Platform content moderation rules. Facebook and Instagram are also subject to the rules, which require risk assessments and the disclosure of user figures in the region every six months.
Not the only one being hit by the bloc’s regulators
Europe has been very active over the past few years in targeting US tech giants and their overwhelming hold on the internet. Regulations to curb the power of these firms have accompanied attempts to boost the region’s own tech industry by supporting regional operators.
The bloc has taken more than $10 billion in fines from Google and has not been shy about targeting the same companies over and over again, even with the White House warning there could be retaliatory tariffs. Cloud service providers Amazon Web Services and Microsoft have both been subject to investigations over market dominance and data sovereignty.
The next arena looks to be data centers and chipmakers.
The EU has published a raft of legislation aimed at reducing the dominance of US data center firms by making sovereignty a key part of government contracts, while also increasing the investment it will provide to local semiconductor manufacturers that expand their output.