Meta Will Block AI Companies On WhatsApp, OpenAI Accounts Will Be Blocked

JAKARTA Meta will ban third-party Artificial Intelligence (AI) companies from using WhatsApp as a chat interface. This rule will take effect in the latest WhatsApp business API.

This ban will take effect from 15 January. This decision was taken after big companies such as OpenAI and Perplexity launched phone numbers that WhatsApp users could directly contact.

With the launch of this phone number, users can chat with their AI model via the WhatsApp application. This approach is very interesting and profitable for AI companies. What's more, WhatsApp has a large number of users.

However, Meta realizes that this trend could harm its chatbots. Therefore, they take action to protect its platform. This rule will prevent competitors from using WhatsApp infrastructure.

According to the new provisions discovered by TechCrunch, the Large Language Model (LLM) provider is prohibited from using the WhatsApp business API 'when the technology is a major function... provided for use'.

This prohibition only targets AI companies that use WhatsApp to interact directly with users. In response to this, OpenAI confirmed that their WhatsApp contacts will no longer be reached after the rules apply.

Meanwhile, Perplexity has not yet responded to changes to the WhatsApp business API rules. Most likely, the AI model will also no longer be able to be contacted through the messaging platform.