EU tells Meta to let rivals run AI chatbots on WhatsApp

The EU has told Meta it has breached its rules by blocking other rival AI firms' chatbots from WhatsApp, and must make "urgent" changes.

The tech giant changed the popular messaging app on 15 January - and since then only its AI assistant Meta AI can access it.

But the European Commission said WhatsApp was an "important entry point" for AI chatbots like ChatGPT to reach people, and claimed Meta was abusing its dominant position by blocking them.

A Meta spokesperson told the BBC the EU had "no reason" to intervene, and claimed it had "incorrectly" assumed WhatsApp Business was a key way that people use chatbots.

"We must protect effective competition in this vibrant field, which means we cannot allow dominant tech companies to illegally leverage their dominance to give themselves an unfair advantage," said Teresa Ribera, the European Commission's competition chief.

The EU will wait for Meta to formally respond to its findings, and depending on the response, it could impose "interim measures" to prevent Meta from causing "serious and irreparable harm on the market".

Mathias Vermeulen, director at AWO, a law firm working on EU digital policies, said the preliminary findings showed firms operating in the EU could not use their control over one market "to unfairly advantage themselves in another".

He said while Meta had not been found to break the law yet, if interim measures were imposed, Meta may be forced to reopen WhatsApp to third-party AI assistants.

It follows a push by the EU to investigate big tech firms through its digital laws.

It comes just three days after the Commission told TikTok it must change its "addictive design" or face heavy fines, after it found the video sharing platform had breached its online safety rules.

It has also launched an inquiry in January into Elon Musk's X over concerns its AI tool Grok was used to create sexualised images of real people.