The Italian government 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.
The Italian Competition Authority (AGCM) announced on Wednesday that it has found sufficient cause in its ongoing investigation into whether Meta abused its dominant market position by offering its Meta AI chatbot within WhatsApp, leading to a suspension of the policy.
“Meta's conduct appears to constitute fraud because it has the potential to limit production, market access, and technology development in the market for AI chatbot services, to the detriment of consumers,” the agency wrote. “Furthermore, while the investigation is ongoing, Meta's conduct could seriously and irreparably harm competition in the affected markets and impair competitiveness.”
The November AGCM expanded the scope of the company's existing investigation into Meta. We changed our business API policy in October Prohibit the provision of general-purpose chatbots on chat apps via API.
Meta insists that its API is not designed as a platform for distributing chatbots, and that people have other ways to use AI bots from other companies besides WhatsApp. The policy change, which goes into effect in January, will affect whether AI chatbots such as OpenAI, Perplexity, and Poke are available on apps.
This policy does not affect companies that use AI to serve their customers on WhatsApp. For example, a retailer running an AI-powered customer service bot will not be prevented from using the API. Only AI chatbots such as ChatGPT and Claude are prohibited from being distributed via API.
The European Commission also launched an investigation into the new policy this month, expressing concern that it “could result in third-party AI providers being unable to offer services through WhatsApp within the European Economic Area ('EEA').”
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Mehta called the regulator's decision “fundamentally flawed” and said WhatsApp's business API is not a path to market for AI companies.
“The emergence of AI chatbots in our business APIs has put a strain on our systems that they were not designed to support. The Italian authorities assume that WhatsApp is somehow a de facto app store. The route to market for AI companies is not through the WhatsApp business platform, but through the app stores themselves, websites, and industry partnerships. We will appeal,” Meta said in an emailed statement.
Note: This article has been updated to include Meta's reaction to this decision.
