European Commission Begins To Investigate Meta Over Alleged Antitrust Related To AI Integration On WhatsApp

Meta is investigated because of the Meta AI feature on WhatsApp (photo: dock. Meta)

JAKARTA - The European Commission, the European Union (EU) regulator, has finally officially opened an antitrust investigation into Meta. The investigation began on Thursday, December 4, 2025.

Through this investigation, regulators will focus on observing Meta AI chatbots on WhatsApp. They will find out if this integration is not friendly to competitors. What's more, Meta recently changed the WhatsApp business API which prohibits the presence of third-party AI chatbots.

This policy makes popular AI chatbots such as ChatGPT and Copilot forced to withdraw from WhatsApp. According to the European Commission, this new policy has the potential to violate the healthy competition rules in the EU.

The head of the European Union's Competition,pribera, conveyed the importance of action from their antitrust regulations. According to Ribera, launching from the Economic Times, "We have to act to prevent digital companies from dominantly abusing their power."

This is considered important to maintain competition, especially with local companies. Therefore, Ribera said that they needed to take action against antitrust cases quickly to protect competition.

"That's why we're investigating whether Meta's new policy may be illegal under competition rules, and whether we should act quickly to prevent potential irreparable losses to competition in the AI sector," Ribera said.

The investigation will cover the entire European Economic Territory, which includes Iceland, Liechtenstein, and Norway. Italy will be excluded from the investigation as they have opened separate investigations since July 2025.

During the investigation, Meta AI remains accessible on WhatsApp. Users simply cannot access chatbots from third parties on the messaging platform.