The European Commission charged Meta Platforms on Monday, February 9, with violating antitrust rules by blocking artificial intelligence rivals from its WhatsApp messaging service and threatened to impose emergency interim measures against the United States technology giant. The move escalates regulatory pressure on Meta as competition authorities seek to prevent dominant platforms from controlling access to fast growing AI markets.
The European Union (EU) executive, which acts as the bloc’s antitrust watchdog, sent a statement of objections to Meta outlining its preliminary view that the company breached EU competition rules by restricting third party AI assistants from WhatsApp. The charges follow a policy change Meta implemented on January 15 that allows only its proprietary AI assistant, Meta AI, to operate on the messaging platform.
The Commission therefore intends to impose interim measures to prevent this policy change from causing serious and irreparable harm on the market, subject to Meta’s reply and rights of defense, the EU executive said in a statement on Monday. The decision on interim measures will depend on Meta’s response and exercise of its defense rights before any emergency action takes effect.
EU Competition Commissioner Teresa Ribera emphasized the need for swift regulatory action to match the rapid pace of AI market development. She stated that AI markets are developing at rapid pace, so we also need to be swift in our action. Ribera added that the Commission cannot allow dominant tech companies to illegally leverage their dominance to give themselves an unfair advantage.
Meta rejected the Commission’s findings in a strongly worded response delivered Monday. The facts are that there is no reason for the EU to intervene in the WhatsApp Business API. There are many AI options and people can use them from app stores, operating systems, devices, websites and industry partnerships, a Meta spokesperson said in an emailed statement to international media outlets.
The spokesperson added that the Commission’s logic incorrectly assumes the WhatsApp Business API is a key distribution channel for these chatbots. Meta maintains that the messaging platform should not be considered an essential pathway for AI assistant distribution and that numerous alternative channels exist for developers to reach consumers.
The investigation centers on changes to WhatsApp Business Solution Terms that Meta announced in October 2025 before implementing them in January 2026. Under the new policy, third party AI providers whose central business relies on large language models or generalized assistance systems are barred from using the WhatsApp Business Application Programming Interface (API). Meta AI remains the sole exception and is fully integrated into the platform.
The Commission’s preliminary assessment concludes that Meta’s conduct gives the company an unfair advantage in the emerging AI assistant market by leveraging WhatsApp’s massive user base. The messaging service has over 2 billion users globally, making it one of the world’s most widely used communication platforms. Regulators argue that by limiting AI assistant access to its own product, Meta restricts consumer choice and blocks opportunities for rival AI developers.
A Commission spokesperson told CNBC that the proposed emergency measures aim to maintain market competition and would remain in place throughout the duration of the full antitrust investigation. The interim measures represent one of the strongest signals that Brussels is prepared to act quickly to curb practices it believes could distort competition in rapidly evolving digital markets.
The charges compound Meta’s regulatory challenges in Europe. American technology companies paid billions in EU penalties during 2025. Meta received a 200 million euro fine in April 2025 for breaching data protection obligations under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Apple faced a 500 million euro penalty the same month for anti-steering violations related to its App Store policies.
Google absorbed the largest penalty with a 2.95 billion euro fine in September 2025 for antitrust violations concerning its online advertising practices. The fine followed a lengthy investigation into whether Google abused its dominant position in the digital advertising market to favor its own services over competitors.
The EU investigation into Meta’s WhatsApp AI policy began on December 4, 2025, following similar action by Italian competition authorities. Italy’s antitrust authority had directed Meta to suspend the WhatsApp AI policy within Italian territory in December 2024. However, the measure only applied within national borders, limiting its effectiveness. Meta implemented a geofenced response that restricted the exemption to Italian phone numbers, leaving users outside Italy locked out of third party AI assistant access.
Brazil’s competition authority also launched an investigation in November 2024 following complaints from AI companies Luzia and Zapia. The companies accused Meta of pursuing an embrace, extend, and extinguish strategy designed to eliminate developer competition by first allowing integration, then restricting access once Meta’s own AI assistant was ready for deployment.
The Interaction Company, operator of the Poke.com AI assistant, submitted complaints to both Italian and EU regulators. Interaction Chief Executive Officer Von Hagen criticized Meta for limiting its policy suspension to Italy alone and urged the Commission to quickly implement interim measures across Europe to protect competition.
The Trump administration has repeatedly criticized the EU for targeting United States companies with antitrust enforcement actions. This geopolitical tension adds complexity to the regulatory proceeding against Meta. However, Commissioner Ribera defended the enforcement action as grounded in market principles rather than political considerations.
Ribera insisted the decision is not connected to politics but to well functioning markets and consumer protection. She stated that companies abusing market power is bad news in every geography, not just Europe, and emphasized that robust competition enforcement benefits consumers regardless of where companies are headquartered.
The case will now move through the EU’s formal antitrust process, which can take months or years to reach a final decision. During this period, Meta will have the opportunity to respond to the charges, propose remedies, or challenge the Commission’s findings. The company retains full defense rights before any penalties are imposed or corrective measures are mandated.
The Commission has not announced a timeline for completing its antitrust review of Meta’s WhatsApp AI restrictions. Industry observers expect the investigation to examine broader questions about how dominant platforms shape access to artificial intelligence tools and whether existing competition law frameworks are adequate to address challenges posed by rapidly evolving technology markets.
The charges against Meta reflect growing regulatory concern that a handful of large technology platforms could establish control over AI assistant distribution before the market matures. Competition authorities across multiple jurisdictions are increasingly focused on ensuring that AI innovation remains accessible to developers of all sizes rather than becoming concentrated among established technology giants.
Legal experts note that interim measures are rarely imposed in EU antitrust cases and typically reserved for situations where regulators believe immediate action is necessary to prevent irreversible harm to competition. If the Commission proceeds with emergency measures, it would signal an unusually aggressive stance toward platform conduct in AI markets.
The final outcome of the investigation could establish important precedents for how competition rules apply to AI integration on dominant messaging platforms. It may also influence regulatory approaches in other jurisdictions grappling with similar questions about platform power and AI market access.
Meta faces growing pressure to revise its WhatsApp AI policy or risk substantial fines and mandatory changes to its business practices. EU antitrust penalties can reach up to 10 per cent of a company’s global annual revenue, giving regulators significant leverage to enforce compliance with competition rules.
