Brussels: Brussels is preparing to launch a fresh antitrust investigation into Meta Platforms over how it introduced artificial intelligence features into WhatsApp.
The move marks the latest action by European regulators against the Big Tech as it tries to encourage technological growth while preventing dominant firms from overreaching.
According to the source, the European Commission could open the inquiry as early as December 4, focusing specifically on Meta’s integration of its Meta AI assistant into WhatsApp earlier this year.
A WhatsApp spokesperson dismissed the allegations, calling them ‘baseless,’ and argued that the appearance of AI chatbots on its platform adds an unexpected burden on systems that weren’t originally built to support such usage.
Competitive AI ecosystem
The spokesperson added that the AI ecosystem remains ‘highly competitive,’ noting that users can easily access alternative tools through app stores, search engines, email services, operating systems, and partner integrations.
The European Commission declined to comment. Meta AI, a virtual assistant and chatbot, has been embedded within WhatsApp since March 2025 across European markets.
Separately, Italy’s competition authority launched its own investigation in July, examining claims that Meta exploited its market position by bundling an AI tool with WhatsApp. That probe was expanded in November to assess whether Meta further misused its dominance by preventing rival AI chatbots from operating on the messaging platform.
The reports say that the new EU investigation will proceed under classic antitrust frameworks rather than the bloc’s Digital Markets Act, the sweeping regulation currently being leveraged to scrutinize Amazon and Microsoft’s cloud operations for potential restrictions.
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