The EU will take “interim measures” against WhatsApp while it investigates AI providers’ access to the app. On Monday, the Notified by the EU’s regulatory arm the “preliminary view” of this Meta, the parent company of WhatsApp, violates antitrust laws by preventing third-party AI assistants from operating on WhatsApp.

The European Commission’s worried about that Meta’s actions limit competitors from entering the AI ​​assistant market. “We must protect effective competition in this dynamic field, which means we cannot allow dominant tech companies to illegally use their dominance to give themselves an unfair advantage,” said Teresa Ribera, executive vice-president for Clean, Just and Competitive Transition in a statement.

Ribera continued: “AI markets are developing at a fast pace, so we also need to speed up our action. That’s why we consider it easy to impose interim measures on Meta, to preserve the access of WhatsApp’s competitors while the investigation is ongoing, and avoid Meta’s new policy that irreparably harms European competition.”

The issue arose in October when Meta announced updates to its WhatsApp Business Solution Terms. According to the European Commission, the update on January 15 is “effectively” possible Meta AI the only AI assistant available on WhatsApp. The regulatory agency opened an investigation in the matter on December 4.

Today’s update stands as a warning to Meta that the European Commission initially believed the company had violated antitrust regulation. The final decision is yet to come. It also gave Meta a chance to respond to the allegations – which it quickly did.

“The facts are that there is no reason for the EU to intervene in the WhatsApp ‌Business API,” a Meta spokesperson said. SPOKE Reuters. “There are many AI options and people can use them from app stores, operating systems, devices, websites, and industry partnerships.”