Report from TechCrunch
In Brief – Italy’s competition authority announced that it has ordered Meta to immediately freeze a policy change that would ban rival generative AI chatbots from operating on WhatsApp. The order applies to WhatsApp in Italy pending the outcome of their antitrust investigation. Meta updated its WhatsApp terms of service in October blocking new AI chatbot providers immediately and closing the messaging service to existing chatbot providers starting in January 2026. The regulator argued that WhatsApp’s chatbot ban could exacerbate consumer lock-in and reduce choice in the emerging chatbot market, as well as irreversibly harm competition in the development of AI chatbots by undermining rivals’ development and investment plans. The regulator highlighted Meta’s strong position in the market for messaging apps, with 60–70% market share across the EU and with 80% of Italians using WhatsApp monthly. The regulator also noted that on WhatsApp, Meta’s AI chatbot had the most daily users, topping even Chat-GPT, and rejected Meta’s argument that third-party chatbot messages strained its WhatsApp infrastructure, which it said was less than 1% of total WhatsApp traffic.
Context – The move by Italy’s regulator follows an announcement by the European Commission competition authority that they are investigating the same WhatsApp policy change, although the Brussels investigation does not currently block Meta’s policy from going into effect. Although WhatsApp is a regulated platform under the Digital Markets Act, the Commission is pursuing a traditional antitrust investigation, likely because Meta’s AI chatbots are not regulated by the DMA. As PEI readers know, market definitions and market shares are central to antitrust actions. While the Italian regulator focused on WhatsApp’s high share of messaging and Meta’s share of AI chatbot traffic on WhatsApp, Meta will want the focus on the overall AI chatbot market. The market share numbers in Europe for the year ending in November 2025 were striking, with Chat-GPT at 83%, followed by Perplexity at 7.8% and Microsoft at 5.5%.