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by Suhasini Srinivasaragavan
10 Jun 2026
WhatsApp on a phone. Image: PixieMe/Shutterstock
The EU said this would ‘prevent serious and irreparable harm to competition’ in the growing market.
The EU has ordered Meta to open up WhatsApp to rival AI assistants and maintain access until the Commission completes its antitrust investigation into the social media juggernaut.
The order comes after Meta said last month that it would give competing general-purpose AI agents free access to WhatsApp business API for a month. A spokesperson at the time told the media that the move would “provide the Commission and Meta with time to achieve a quick and fair outcome to the investigation”.
The EU, however, wants this arrangement to be extended, arguing that this would “prevent serious and irreparable harm to competition in this growing market by Meta’s conduct”.
The measures will stay in place until the end of the investigation, or until June 2029. The company has until Monday next week (15 June) to comply with the changes.
The bloc launched its investigation into Meta in December last year after the company, in October, blocked competing third-party AI providers from reaching their customers through WhatsApp. In February, EU authorities told Meta that it had been breaching the bloc’s antitrust laws.
A month later, Meta slightly reversed course and reinstated access to WhatsApp for third-party AI assistants – but for a fee, which the Commission rebutted was “equivalent to the previous access ban”.
The Commission’s move yesterday (9 June) orders Meta to open up access under the same terms and conditions that were in place prior to the October access ban.
“In rapidly evolving markets, competition can be lost long before a final decision is adopted,” said Teresa Ribera, the executive vice-president for clean, just and competitive transition.
“This is why these interim measures will remain in place for the duration of the investigation, in order to prevent harm that would be almost impossible to repair.”
“These interim measures will safeguard competition in the growing market for AI assistants, by preserving a key entry point to reach consumers in Europe – WhatsApp – and allowing AI companies to innovate, scale up and reach their full potential,” Ribera added.
In its statement yesterday, the EU said that Meta – with WhatsApp – has held a dominant position in consumer communication applications in the bloc since at least 2023, a position it has been abusing by preventing its own Meta AI from competing with third-party AI agents.
The Commission said that “at first sight”, this constituted a “refusal to provide access to an infrastructure developed for and previously open to third parties.”
“There is an urgent need to prevent a risk of serious damage to the competitive structure in the growing market for general-purpose AI assistants.”
In the sidelines, the EU has been ramping up efforts to drum up business for home-grown AI technology in the bloc.
Last month, European Parliament lawmakers and member states agreed on a simplified version of the EU AI Act to drive up AI adoption, allow business time to comply with the new law and be able to compete with foreign businesses.
“Meta’s policy change risks harming competition at a key moment in time for the development of that market, where smaller player and new entrants can challenge large incumbents,” the Commission added.
These are not the EU’s final findings on the matter. The interim measures are part of an ongoing investigation into Meta.
The social media giant is on the hook for up to 10pc of its annual global turnover if the EU ultimately finds that it broke antitrust laws under the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union and the EEA Agreement.
Meta has faced an onslaught of legal issues in the past few months, including two investigations from Ireland’s Coimisiún na Meán over the company’s recommender systems and compliance with the Digital Services Act (DSA).
In April, the EU – in a separate investigation – preliminarily found that Instagram and Facebook breached the DSA for failing to “diligently” identify and mitigate risks that children under 13 face when using these platforms.
In March, a landmark US legal case found that Meta’s platforms were designed to be addictive to children, while a different case that concluded a day prior found that Meta’s platforms enable child sexual exploitation.
Earlier this month, Meta disclosed that 20,225 Instagram accounts were hacked over a period of more than a month after bad actors discovered a bug in Meta AI. In a new report, the New York Times found that roughly 34,000 Instagram accounts were affected in the April hack.
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Related: AI, Meta, WhatsApp, legal, EU, Europe
Suhasini Srinivasaragavan is a sci-tech reporter for Silicon Republic
editorial@siliconrepublic.com
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