{"id":450496,"date":"2026-04-15T18:55:00","date_gmt":"2026-04-15T16:55:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/2026\/04\/15\/lue-invita-meta-a-riammettere-gli-assistenti-ia-terzi-su-whatsapp\/"},"modified":"2026-04-15T19:20:29","modified_gmt":"2026-04-15T17:20:29","slug":"the-eu-calls-on-meta-to-reinstate-third-party-ai-assistants-on-whatsapp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/2026\/04\/15\/the-eu-calls-on-meta-to-reinstate-third-party-ai-assistants-on-whatsapp\/","title":{"rendered":"The EU calls on Meta to reinstate third-party AI assistants on WhatsApp"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brussels \u2013 The European Commission is pressing ahead with its proceedings to adopt interim measures to restore full access to WhatsApp for rival virtual assistants. The European Commission today sent<\/b> (15 April) a supplementary statement of objections to Meta<\/b> in which it states its intention to order the multinational to restore access for third-party virtual assistants to WhatsApp<\/b> under the same conditions that applied prior to the change in its policy on 15 October 2025, and notwithstanding the changes announced by Meta on 4 March 2026. This is a further step in the European Commission\u2019s interim measures procedure as part of its investigation into a potential abuse of a dominant position by Meta, through the restriction of third-party virtual assistants\u2019 access to its WhatsApp messaging app. “Excluding competitors in rapidly evolving markets such as AI is exactly the kind of behaviour that the interim measures aim to counter<\/strong>,” explained Teresa Ribera<\/strong>, Executive Vice-President of the European Commission for a Clean, Fair and Competitive Transition. “Replacing the legal ban with a pricing policy that has a similar effect does not alter our preliminary view that Meta\u2019s conduct appears to constitute an abuse of a dominant position, which could seriously harm competition in the market for AI-based virtual assistants. For this reason, we are proceeding with the process to adopt interim measures, which would restore full access to WhatsApp for competing virtual assistants, pending a full analysis of the matter,” the Spanish official emphasised. <\/p>\n

Today\u2019s communication follows the supplementary statement of objections sent on 9 February, in which the Commission set out its preliminary view that Meta had infringed EU antitrust rules by excluding third-party virtual assistants from accessing and interacting with users on WhatsApp. In today\u2019s document, the Commission has assessed Meta\u2019s decision to restore access to WhatsApp for third-party virtual assistants, subject to payment of a fee. It “has preliminarily concluded that this policy is in effect equivalent to the previous ban on access,” meaning that “Meta\u2019s conduct risks preventing competitors from entering or expanding in the rapidly growing market for AI-based virtual assistants.” Consequently, \u201cthe Commission intends to impose interim measures to prevent these regulatory changes from causing serious and irreparable harm to the market, subject to Meta\u2019s replies and rights of defence<\/strong>,\u201d reads a press release. The interim measures will remain in force until the conclusion of the Commission\u2019s investigation and the adoption of a final decision on Meta\u2019s conduct. Furthermore, in a separate decision, in cooperation with the Italian competition authority, the Commission today extended the investigation to Italy<\/strong>; therefore, the Commission\u2019s conclusions will now apply to the entire European Economic Area (EEA). Brussels notes that “Italy had previously been excluded from the Commission\u2019s investigation, as the Italian competition authority had launched its own investigation into the matter.”<\/p>\n

 The story began on 15 October last year, when Meta announced an update to the Terms of Service for its WhatsApp Business solution, effectively banning the use of third-party AI-powered virtual assistants from 15 January 2026. On 4 December 2025, the Commission opened formal proceedings as part of this ongoing investigation and, on 9 February, sent Meta a statement of objections, \u201cnotifying it that its conduct appears, at first glance, to be in breach of EU competition rules and of the Commission\u2019s intention to impose interim measures.\u201d Meta\u2019s response arrived on 2 March, and two days later, the US giant published a revised policy, lifting the ban but introducing a pricing framework applicable to third-party AI-based virtual assistants. In today\u2019s supplementary statement of objections, the Commission notified Meta that \u201cthe revised policy appears to have the same effect of excluding third-party virtual assistants from WhatsApp and therefore appears, at first glance, to infringe EU competition rules<\/strong>.\u201d Therefore, to prevent serious and irreparable harm to competition, the Commission intends to order Meta to restore access for third-party virtual assistants on the same terms as those in place prior to 15 October 2025, until it reaches a final decision on Meta\u2019s conduct. In any event, the sending of today\u2019s letter does not prejudge the outcome of the investigation, and Meta has the opportunity to respond to the Commission\u2019s concerns.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In a separate initial decision, in cooperation with the Italian competition authority, the Commission today extended the investigation to Italy as well<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7874,"featured_media":450488,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","show_comment_section":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[25710],"tags":[33780,28074,26697,28885,27368,33394,27643],"class_list":["post-450496","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-net-tech-en","tag-assistenti-terzi","tag-commissione-en","tag-communication-en","tag-ia-and","tag-meta-en","tag-ue","tag-whatsapping"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/450496","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7874"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=450496"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/450496\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":450497,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/450496\/revisions\/450497"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/450488"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=450496"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=450496"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=450496"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}