Brazil's competition regulator has ordered WhatsApp to suspend its policy that prohibits third-party artificial intelligence companies from using its business API to offer AI chatbots on the app. The service has also launched an investigation into the company to determine whether the policy is anti-competitive.
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“According to the investigations, there is potential anti-competitive conduct of an exclusive nature resulting from the application of the New WhatsApp Terms (“WhatsApp Business Solution Terms”) imposed by Meta to regulate the access and offer, by artificial intelligence tool providers, of its technologies to WhatsApp users,” the Conselho Administrativo de Defesa Econômica (CADE) reported.
CADE said it would investigate whether Meta's terms exclude competitors and unduly favor Meta AI, the company's chatbot offered on WhatsApp.
Meta last October changed the terms of use for the WhatsApp Business API to prohibit third-party AI companies from offering their chatbots on the app. Companies like OpenAI, Perplexity, and Microsoft soon noted that after the policy went into effect on January 15, their chatbots would no longer be offered on WhatsApp. Notably, Meta’s policy does not prevent businesses from offering their own chatbots, whether AI-powered or not, inside WhatsApp to their customers.
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The CADE investigation comes after the European Union launched its own antitrust investigation into the new policy, as did Italy. If the EU finds Meta in breach of its antitrust rules, it could be fined up to 10% of its global revenue.
Meta has informed AI providers that they can continue to offer their AI chatbots to users in Italy even after the new rules go into effect on Jan. 15, according to a notice to developers seen by TechCrunch. The company could make a similar decision in Brazil following the CADE order.
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The company has consistently argued that AI chatbots burden its systems designed for different uses of its business API. Meta has even stated in the past that people who want to use different chatbots can do so outside of WhatsApp.
