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Meta must grant rival AI chatbots access to WhatsApp within five days, EU orders
The European Commission issued an interim antitrust order forcing Meta to restore free API access for competing AI assistants, with fines of up to 10% of global revenue on the table.
The European Commission just gave Meta a five-day countdown. On June 9, the EU issued an interim antitrust order requiring the company to reopen WhatsApp’s Business API to rival AI chatbots, free of charge, under the same terms that existed before Meta quietly locked the door last October.
The order carries teeth: non-compliance could trigger fines of up to 10% of Meta’s global annual turnover.
What Meta did, and why the EU isn’t having it
In October 2025, Meta changed the rules for its WhatsApp Business API, effectively blocking general-purpose AI chatbots from accessing the platform. Then, starting in March 2026, Meta began charging competitors fees that several firms described as unsustainable.
Companies including Poke.com, Agentik, and a Spanish competitor filed grievances with EU regulators, arguing that Meta was weaponizing WhatsApp’s dominant position to give its own AI products an unfair advantage. The European Commission launched a formal antitrust investigation in December 2025, followed by formal charges against Meta in February and April 2026.
EU antitrust chief Teresa Ribera stated that Meta’s actions appeared strategically designed to leverage WhatsApp’s dominance to benefit Meta AI while limiting rivals’ ability to compete. The Commission concluded that the situation warranted emergency intervention rather than waiting for the full investigation to conclude.
The remedy is specific: Meta must reinstate the pre-October 2025 terms of access within five working days. That means free access, same conditions.
Meta calls it overreach, prepares for court
Meta has condemned the ruling as “regulatory overreach” and announced plans to challenge it in court.
For rival AI firms, this ruling is potentially transformative. Companies like Poke.com and Agentik, which filed the original complaints, could see their addressable market expand dramatically overnight. If WhatsApp’s API returns to pre-October 2025 conditions, smaller AI chatbot companies regain access to one of the world’s largest messaging platforms without prohibitive costs.