Meta Platforms said it will let rival artificial-intelligence chatbots communicate with users on its WhatsApp messaging platform after the European Commission said it could impose a temporary injunction on the company as part of an antitrust probe into its AI policy.
The commission told Meta last month it was concerned that a new policy—which prevents rivals like ChatGPT from using a tool on WhatsApp for businesses that allows them to talk to users—could breach the bloc’s competition rules. It said there was an “urgent need” to put protective measures in place to prevent “serious and irreparable harm” to the market for general purpose AI assistants, pending Meta’s right of defense.
Meta notified the commission of its plan to reinstate rival AI providers’ access to WhatsApp for a fee, a spokesperson for the European Union executive said, adding that officials are analyzing how the move could affect its probe.
“For the next 12 months, we’ll support general purpose AI chatbots using the WhatsApp Business API in Europe in response to the European Commission’s regulatory process,” a WhatsApp spokesperson said. “We believe that this removes the need for any immediate intervention as it gives the European Commission the time it needs to conclude its investigation,” the spokesperson said.
Meta previously rejected the EU’s decision to start scrutinizing the measure, calling its claims baseless and saying that AI chatbots strain its systems.
Meta said in October it would introduce a new policy that effectively bans developers of rival chatbots like ChatGPT from using WhatsApp’s business interface while Meta AI still runs on the platform. The company started rolling out the strategy in January.
The EU started investigating the policy in December after Italy’s competition watchdog launched its own probe, which is still going on. Meta reopened WhatsApp to rival AI operators in Italy in January after officials ordered their own injunction. “Where we are legally required to provide AI chatbots through the WhatsApp Business API, we are introducing pricing for the companies who choose to use our platform to provide those services,” a Meta spokesperson said.
The pricing policy will also apply in Brazil, where a court earlier this week reinstated an interim injunction that antitrust enforcers imposed on Meta as part of their own investigation into the WhatsApp AI policy. The injunction had been suspended by judges in a different court earlier this year.
Write to Edith Hancock at edith.hancock@wsj.com