Italy tells Meta to suspend its policy that bans rival AI chatbots from WhatsApp

Italy has ordered Meta to suspend its policy that bans companies from using WhatsApp’s business tools to offer their own AI chatbots on the popular chat app.

The Italian Competition Authority (AGCM) on Wednesday said it had found enough cause in its ongoing investigation into whether Meta was abusing its dominant position in the market to offer its Meta AI chatbot within WhatsApp to order the suspension of the policy.

“Meta’s conduct appears to constitute an abuse, since it may limit production, market access, or technical developments in the AI Chatbot services market, to the detriment of consumers,” the Authority wrote. “Moreover, while the investigation is ongoing, Meta’s conduct may cause serious and irreparable harm to competition in the affected market, undermining contestability.”

The AGCM in November had broadened the scope of an existing investigation into Meta, after the company changed its business API policy in October to ban general-purpose chatbots from being offered on the chat app via the API.

Meta has argued that its API isn’t designed to be a platform for the distribution of chatbots and that people have more avenues beyond WhatsApp to use AI bots from other companies. The policy change, which goes into effect in January, would affect the availability of AI chatbots from the likes of OpenAI, Perplexity, and Poke on the app.

The policy doesn’t affect businesses that are using AI to serve customers on WhatsApp. For instance, a retailer running an AI-powered customer service bot won’t be barred from using the API. Only AI chatbots like ChatGPT or Claude are prohibited from being distributed via the 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 through WhatsApp in the European Economic Area (‘EEA’).”

Calling the Authority’s decision “fundamentally flawed,” Meta said WhatsApp’s business API isn’t a route to the market for AI companies.

“The emergence of AI chatbots on our Business API put a strain on our systems that they were not designed to support. The Italian authority assumes WhatsApp is somehow a defacto app store. The route to market for AI companies are 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 was updated to add Meta’s response to the decision.