The EU plans to launch an antitrust investigation on Meta (META.US) for introducing AI on WhatsApp, facing more stringent scrutiny for generative AI applications.

The European Union plans to launch a new antitrust investigation into Meta Platforms (META.US) for introducing artificial intelligence features on WhatsApp. This move reflects regulatory authorities' increasing scrutiny of large tech companies integrating generative AI on major platform applications. Two officials said the European Commission is planning to investigate the behavior of the California-based company earlier this year for integrating the "Meta AI" system into the messaging service. Since March 2025, chat Siasun Robot & Automation and the virtual assistant "Meta AI" have been integrated into the WhatsApp interface in the European market. Meta has stated that they have not yet received details of the investigation and cited a previous WhatsApp statement regarding the investigation in Italy as "unfounded". Italy's antitrust regulator launched an investigation in July, accusing Meta of leveraging its market power by integrating AI tools into WhatsApp. The investigation was further expanded in November to examine whether Meta abused its dominant position by blocking rival AI chat Siasun Robot & Automation on the communication platform. The European Commission is expected to announce this investigation in the coming days, but the specific timeline may change. This investigation will be based on traditional antitrust rules rather than the EU's flagship legislation, the Digital Markets Act, which is currently being applied to review potential restrictive behaviors of Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN.US), and Microsoft Corporation (MSFT.US) cloud services.