Brazil orders Meta to suspend policy banning third-party AI chatbots from WhatsApp

Brazil’s competition watchdog has ordered WhatsApp to put on hold its policy that bars third-party AI companies from using its business API to offer chatbots on the app. The agency has also started an investigation against the company to determine if the policy is anti-competitive.

“According to the investigations, there is possible anti-competitive conduct of an exclusive nature that arises from the application of the New WhatsApp Terms (“WhatsApp Business Solution Terms”) imposed by Meta to regulate the access and offer, by providers of artificial intelligence tools, of its technologies to WhatsApp users,” the Conselho Administrativo de Defesa Econômica (CADE) said.

CADE said it would investigate if Meta’s terms are exclusionary to competitors and unduly favor Meta AI, the company’s chatbot that’s offered on WhatsApp.

Meta last October changed its terms of use for the WhatsApp Business API to ban third-party AI companies from offering their chatbots on the app. Companies like OpenAI, Perplexity, and Microsoft soon after noted that after the policy goes into force from January 15, their chatbots would no longer be offered on WhatsApp. Notably, Meta’s policy does not stop businesses from offering their own chatbots, AI-powered or otherwise, within WhatsApp to their customers.

CADE’s investigation comes after the European Union launched its own antitrust investigation into the new policy, as has 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 told AI providers that they can continue offering their AI chatbots to users in Italy even after the new rules go into force on January 15, according to a notice to developers seen by TechCrunch. The company could make a similar decision in Brazil following CADE’s order.

Meta did not immediately respond to a request for a comment outside regular business hours.

The company has consistently maintained that AI chatbots are straining its systems that were designed for different uses of its business API. Meta has even said in the past that people who want to use different chatbots can do so outside WhatsApp.

“The purpose of the WhatsApp Business API is to help businesses provide customer support and send relevant updates. Our focus is on supporting the tens of thousands of businesses who are building these experiences on WhatsApp,” a Meta spokesperson said when the company changed the terms in October.