The European Commission has informed Yuan It intends to take “temporary measures” to stop the tech giant from excluding third-party AI assistants from WhatsApp.

On Monday, the EU notified the company that it initially believed it had “violated” EU antitrust rules. The investigation is still ongoing and specific measures will depend on Meta’s response and right of defence, the commission said.

EU Competition Commissioner Teresa Ribera said it would protect “effective competition” by preventing “dominant technology companies from illegally exploiting their dominant position to give themselves an unfair advantage”.

“The market for artificial intelligence is evolving rapidly, so we need to act quickly too. That is why we are considering quickly implementing interim measures against Meta to preserve competitors’ access to WhatsApp while the investigation is ongoing and to avoid Meta’s new policy causing irreparable damage to European competition,” she added.

In October, Meta announced an update to its WhatsApp Business Solutions terms that “effectively” banned third-party general-purpose artificial intelligence assistants from using the app, the commission said. The policy went into effect in January.

A spokesperson for the European Commission told CNBC that the interim measures will include requiring Meta to maintain access to WhatsApp by third-party AI assistants under the terms before the policy change while an investigation is carried out.

A Meta spokesperson said: “The fact is that the EU has no reason to interfere with the WhatsApp Business API.”

“There are many artificial intelligence options available, and people can use them from app stores, operating systems, devices, websites and industry partners. The Commission’s logic mistakenly believes that the WhatsApp Business API is a key distribution channel for these chatbots,” they added.

In 2025, large U.S. tech companies were hit with massive fines for violating EU rules.

April, apple fined 500 million euros after being found to have breached its counter-steering obligations.

In the same month, Meta was fined €200 million for breaching its obligation to let consumers choose services that use less personal data.

In September, the commission fined Google 2.95 trillion euros Violates antitrust rules regarding online advertising.