To avoid a high-stakes antitrust investigation by the European Commission, Meta has announced it will temporarily allow third-party AI chatbots to operate on WhatsApp in Europe via its Business API. This 12-month concession comes after regulators threatened interim measures to stop Meta from blocking competitors like ChatGPT or Claude. While the move aims to satisfy concerns about fair competition, it comes with a catch: Meta will charge providers between €0.0490 and €0.1323 per message. Given that AI interactions often involve lengthy exchanges, these fees could become a significant financial burden for Meta’s rivals.
The regulatory pressure stems from a policy change Meta implemented in January, which barred general-purpose AI assistants while allowing businesses to continue using simple, templatized customer service bots. This sparked complaints from AI developers and drew scrutiny from officials in Italy and Brazil, especially since Meta promotes its own "Meta AI" on the platform. Although WhatsApp previously argued that third-party bots strain its infrastructure, this new "pay-to-play" opening suggests a shift toward managing high-volume data through monetization rather than outright bans.
Source: Tech Crunch
