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Meta-owned WhatsApp has blocked rival AI chatbots from running on the platform and the regulators are not liking this change.
Meta has been warned about blocking rival AI chatbots in Europe and needs to let them work.
Microsoft, OpenAI and Perplexity were blocked from running their AI chatbots on WhatsApp after Meta decided to restrict access to third-party business APIs on the messaging app for all these rivals. The start of January 2026 has spelled the end of AI bots that are available on WhatsApp for billions.
And one of them is ChatGPT is one of the many that have been forced to disable their AI chatbots from the messaging app after Meta changed the game starting January 15, 2026, when the new rules came into effect.
Meta noticed that most of the Businesses using its app API have devised ways to integrate their AI assistant that serves the general users. The company has changed the rules by stopping these companies from building their AI assistant bots and making them available on WhatsApp. This is a big jolt for ChatGPT and Perplexity among others who have offered their WhatsApp bots to make the features widely available.
EU Regulators Not Happy With Meta’s New Policy
EU regulators in Brussels see these changes as Meta breaching its antitrust rules, and excluding rival AI chatbots from WhatsApp is a big part of the reason why these rules were adopted in the first place. We have already seen Italy forcing Meta to exclude its region from blocking third-party AI assistants and the EU ruling could open a can of worms that more countries might be inclined to investigate and act on.
US President Donald Trump has accused the EU of targeting US-based companies for these strict rules, but the regulator assures that the policies are not only good news for users in its region but for countries like the US as well.
Meta has come out strongly to these demands from EU regulators suggesting people have other platforms where AI chatbots are available. “The facts are that there is no reason for the EU to intervene in the WhatsApp Business API,” a Meta spokesperson has been quoted saying in a statement.
Valid Grounds?
Meta owns WhatsApp so it feels the policies can be crafted for its own business interests. However, when a platform caters to billions of users daily, the competition angle is undoubtedly going to spark a debate, and the EU regulators have done this previously with Apple and Meta itself in the last few years.
Are these rules anti-tech, not really, but what they do is help the consumers, and we don’t see anyone besides these tech giants complain about the rules.
Apple tried the privacy pitch when asked to adopt USB C charging for its devices, and also allow sideloading of apps through the App Store in European countries. Meta probably feels that the EU regulation could force them to unblock the API restrictions in other countries if they decide to tread the same path.
Brussels, Belgium
February 10, 2026, 12:41 IST
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