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

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

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

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

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

Meta has argued that the API is not designed as a platform for chatbot distribution and that people have more options to use AI bots from other companies besides WhatsApp. The policy change, which comes into effect in January, would affect the availability of AI chatbots from the likes of OpenAI, Perplexity and Poke in the app.

The policy does not affect companies that use AI to serve customers on WhatsApp. For example, a retailer operating an AI-powered customer service bot is not excluded from using the API. Only AI chatbots such as ChatGPT or Claude are not allowed to be distributed via the API.

The European Commission also launched an investigation into the new policy this month, raising concerns that it “could deter other AI providers from offering their services via WhatsApp in the European Economic Area (‘EEA’).”

Meta called the Authority’s decision “fundamentally flawed” and said WhatsApp’s business API is not a route to market for AI companies.

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