The European Commission has intensified its scrutiny of Meta’s ecosystem, issuing a supplementary statement of objections that characterizes the tech giant’s latest policy shifts as a mere continuation of anti-competitive practices. On April 15, regulators in Brussels preliminarily concluded that Meta’s revised terms for its WhatsApp business solutions, despite appearing to open the door to third-party artificial intelligence assistants, actually serve to stifle market entry through a prohibitive fee framework.
This dispute traces back to October 2025, when Meta abruptly banned third-party AI assistants from accessing WhatsApp, a move that immediately drew the ire of EU antitrust watchdogs. Following a preliminary finding of non-compliance in early 2026, Meta pivoted in March to a new policy that lifted the outright ban but introduced a complex charging structure. The Commission now asserts that these fees are effectively a 'de facto' ban, designed to hinder competitors from scaling their services within one of the world’s most dominant messaging platforms.
To prevent irreparable harm to the nascent AI assistant market, the European Commission is signaling its intent to impose interim measures. These would force Meta to restore third-party access to WhatsApp under the original, pre-October 2025 conditions while the broader investigation proceeds. Such a move highlights the regulator's urgency in ensuring that the gatekeeper status of platforms like WhatsApp does not become a springboard for monopolizing the next generation of digital interfaces.
Meta now faces a formal window to mount its defense and may request an oral hearing to contest these findings. The outcome of this case will set a critical precedent for how interoperability and competition are defined in the age of generative AI. For now, Brussels remains steadfast in its position that a dominant platform cannot use its infrastructure to gatekeep the AI tools that consumers and businesses are increasingly coming to rely upon across the European Economic Area.