Brussels has opened an antitrust investigation into Meta Platforms over its rollout of artificial intelligence features in WhatsApp, the European Commission said on Thursday, as Big Tech’s use of generative AI comes under increasing scrutiny.
The move, reported earlier by Reuters and the Financial Times, is the latest action by European regulators against large technology firms such as Amazon and Alphabet’s Google as the bloc seeks to balance support for the sector with efforts to curb its expanding influence.
Europe’s tougher stance on regulation has sparked an industry pushback, particularly by US tech titans, and led to criticism from the administration of US President Donald Trump.
The European Commission said that the investigation will look into Meta’s new policy that would limit other AI providers’ access to WhatsApp, a potential boost for its own Meta AI system integrated into the platform earlier this year.
EU antitrust chief Teresa Ribera said in a statement that the move was to ensure European citizens and businesses could benefit fully from AI and aimed to prevent dominant firms “abusing their power to crowd out innovative competitors”.
“AI markets are booming in Europe and beyond,” she said. “This is why we are investigating if Meta’s new policy might be illegal under competition rules.”
A WhatsApp spokesperson called the claims “baseless”, adding that the emergence of chatbots on its platforms had put a “strain on our systems that they were not designed to support”, a reference to AI systems from other providers.
“Still, the AI space is highly competitive and people have access to the services of their choice in any number of ways, including app stores, search engines, email services, partnership integrations, and operating systems.”
Meta AI vs rival AI chatbots
Meta AI, a chatbot and virtual assistant, has been built into WhatsApp’s interface across European markets since March.
The Commission said a new policy fully applicable from January 15, 2026, may block competing AI providers from reaching customers via the platform.
“If proven, the practices under investigation may breach EU competition rules that prohibit the abuse of a dominant position,” the Commission said.
Italy’s antitrust watchdog opened a parallel investigation in July into allegations that Meta leveraged its market power by integrating an AI tool into WhatsApp.
The probe was expanded in November to examine whether Meta further abused its dominance by blocking rival AI chatbots from the messaging platform.
The antitrust probe is a more traditional means of investigation than the EU’s Digital Markets Act, the bloc’s landmark legislation currently used to scrutinise Amazon and Microsoft’s cloud services for potential curbs.
