European Commission forces Meta to accept third-party chatbots in WhatsApp for free

This order represents the aforementioned interim measures. The EC's order is based on the fact that "Meta has at first sight held a dominant position in the European Economic Area-wide market for consumer communication applications since at least January 2023", and the company has been "abusing this dominant position by preventing competing general-purpose AI assistants from using the WhatsApp for Business API". The EC concluded that, at first sight, Meta's ban on third-party chatbots in WhatsApp "constituted a refusal to provide access to an infrastructure developed and previously open to third parties". In March, Meta accepted third-party general-purpose AI assistants in WhatsApp, but only for a fee, which, the EC says, "is a practice equivalent to the previous access ban". Today's order makes Meta go back to the status quo before October 2025, when third-party AI chatbots had access to WhatsApp for free. Meta has to maintain access on those terms until the EC adopts a final decision on this case. Source