Meta Faces EU Antitrust Investigation for AI Practices on WhatsApp

In response to growing criticism of Big Tech's use of generative AI, the European Commission announced on 4 December that it has launched a new antitrust probe against Meta Platforms and started a new tab over the development of AI features in WhatsApp. As the union looks to strike a balance between supporting the industry and attempting to limit its growing power, the measure, which was first reported by Reuters and the Financial Times, represents the most recent action taken by European regulators against major technology companies.

What Triggered the European Union?

Following the California-based company's integration of its Meta AI system into the messaging service earlier this year, the European Commission launched an investigation into Meta's new policy regulating AI vendors' access to WhatsApp. The assertions are unfounded, according to a WhatsApp representative, who also stated that the rise of chatbots on its platforms strains company’s systems in ways that they were not intended to handle. He added further that even still, the AI space is highly competitive, and people have access to the services of their choice in any number of ways, including app stores, search engines, email services, partnership integrations, and operating systems.

##Italy Also Puts its Scanner on Meta

A parallel inquiry into claims that Meta used its market dominance to integrate an AI tool into WhatsApp was launched by Italy's antitrust watchdog in July. In November, the investigation was broadened to look at whether Meta had further abused its power by preventing competing AI chatbots from using the messaging app.

According to officials cited by the Financial Times, the EU investigation will be carried out in accordance with conventional antitrust laws instead of the EU's Digital Markets Act, which is the bloc's historic law that is currently being used to examine Microsoft's (MSFT.O) and Amazon's (AMZN.O) cloud services for possible restrictions. Since March 2025, a chatbot and virtual assistant called Meta AI has been included in WhatsApp's UI throughout European markets.

It comes months after Google was fined 2.95 billion euros ($3.45 billion) by the European Commission for violating competition laws pertaining to online advertising. Apple was fined 500 million euros in April for violating anti-steering regulations. In the same month, Meta was fined 200 million euros for failing to provide customers with a service that uses less of their personal information.