EU Warns Meta: Let ChatGPT and Other AI Bots Back Into WhatsApp, or Face Emergency Action

Europe is turning up the heat on Meta over a move that could reshape how millions of people, and businesses, use WhatsApp: regulators say the company can’t lock rival AI assistants out of the app while keeping its own Meta AI front and center.

The European Commission, the EU’s executive arm and top antitrust enforcer, is weighing rare “interim measures”, an emergency-style order, to force WhatsApp to restore access for competing AI tools like OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, and Perplexity while the broader investigation plays out.

At the center of the fight is a rule change that cut off third-party AI assistants from working inside WhatsApp, followed by an attempt to charge them per message, an approach Brussels says effectively keeps competitors out and protects Meta’s in-house assistant.

Europe’s demand: interoperability, not a Meta-only AI lane

EU officials argue this isn’t a minor technical tweak. WhatsApp is one of Europe’s dominant communications platforms, and for many companies it doubles as a customer-service pipeline. When Meta changes the rules, entire business workflows can break overnight.

Brussels’ concern is straightforward: if WhatsApp becomes a gated channel where Meta AI is integrated by default and rivals are blocked or priced out, innovation shifts away from the platform, and competitors lose a critical distribution route.

The Commission is exploring interim measures because it believes the harm could be immediate and hard to reverse. That’s a high legal bar in Europe, reserved for situations where regulators think competition could be seriously damaged before a final decision arrives.

The flashpoint: WhatsApp shut the door on third-party AI on Jan. 15

According to the timeline laid out in the dispute, WhatsApp blocked third-party AI assistants integrated into the app on Jan. 15. The change hit chatbot providers that had built products around WhatsApp, including widely known consumer brands and smaller vendors trying to grow.

For everyday users, the impact can be subtle. For businesses, it’s not. Many companies use WhatsApp-based bots to answer common questions, route requests, confirm appointments, and handle order updates, work that would otherwise require human staff or a different messaging channel.

Meta’s position is that the AI assistant market is crowded and competitors can reach users elsewhere. EU regulators are focused on something else: when one company controls a dominant on-ramp, “elsewhere” may not be good enough to compete.

The price tag that set off alarms: $0.0625 per message

After the block, Meta floated a paid-access model for rival AI assistants: $0.0625 per message. On paper, that looks like a standard API fee. In a real customer-service conversation, costs can spike fast.

A 20-message exchange would cost about $1.25. At scale, the math gets ugly. An e-commerce business handling 2,000 conversations a day at an average of 15 messages each would generate roughly 30,000 messages, about $1,875 per day, or roughly $56,000 per month.

EU officials viewed that pricing as potentially deterrent, so high it could function like a ban. Meta counters that forcing free access would amount to subsidizing competitors and shifting costs onto European businesses that rely on WhatsApp’s infrastructure.

Meta’s counteroffer: a limited free tier, then fees after a cap

Under pressure, Meta has proposed a compromise for Europe: allow rival AI assistants into WhatsApp for free up to a usage ceiling, then charge once they cross that threshold.

The cap is where the real fight lives. If the free tier is small, competitors can demo but not truly scale. If it’s large, rivals regain meaningful access to WhatsApp’s user base, and Meta AI loses some built-in advantage.

Regulators are also watching for whether the rules are applied evenly. A “free” offer that comes with restrictive terms, technical hurdles, or discriminatory conditions could still leave Meta AI as the only practical option inside WhatsApp.

Why this matters beyond WhatsApp: Europe’s Digital Markets Act

The case is unfolding under the EU’s Digital Markets Act, a sweeping law aimed at “gatekeeper” platforms, think the European equivalent of Washington’s toughest Big Tech proposals, but already on the books and actively enforced.

It also follows a notable move in Italy, where the country’s competition authority ordered Meta on Dec. 24, 2025, to pause efforts to push AI chatbots out of WhatsApp Business while an investigation continued, citing the risk of lasting damage to competition.

Now the European Commission is signaling it may go further, and faster. If Brussels imposes interim measures, it would send a clear message to Big Tech: in Europe, controlling the platform doesn’t automatically mean controlling who gets to innovate on it.