The Italian Competition Commission (AGCM) has recently asked Meta Platforms to temporarily suspend its policy of banning AI chatbots from competing on WhatsApp through the platform's business tool.
The decision was made after authorities found sufficient signs that Meta may have abused its dominance in the market.
According to the announcement issued on Wednesday local time (December 24), AGCM said that the ongoing investigation has shown that Meta's new policy has the potential to seriously damage competition in the field of AI chatbot services.
Specifically, limiting third-party companies to provide AI chatbot on WhatsApp could reduce market access, hinder technological innovation and cause direct harm to consumers.
According to AGCM, Meta's behavior seems to constitute abuse, as it can limit production, hinder market access and slow down the technical development of the AI chatbot market.
The agency also warned that if Meta continues to maintain its policy during the investigation, it could cause serious and irreparable damage to the competitive environment.
Previously, in October, Meta changed Google's business API policy, prohibiting companies from using APIs to distribute multi-functional AI chatbot on the platform.
In November, AGCM decided to expand the existing scope of investigation for Meta, focusing on the competitive impact of this policy change.
The new regulation is expected to take effect from January and directly affect the ability to provide AI chatbot of many large technology companies.
According to experts, this policy could cause popular AI chatbot such as OpenAI's ChatGPT, Claude or Perplexity to no longer appear on Facebook through official API.
Meanwhile, Meta integrates its own Meta AI chatbot directly into the application, raising concerns about favoring internal products and eliminating competitors.
Meta denied that Google's API was not designed to become a multi-functional AI chatbot distribution platform.
The company says users still have many other options besides WhatsApp to access AI chatbots from third parties.
Meta also stressed that the new policy does not affect businesses that use AI for customer service purposes, such as sales support chatbots or service consulting.
However, concerns about competition do not stop in Italy. This month, the European Commission also launched a separate investigation into the policy of. Meta. The agency said the new regulations could prevent third-party AI providers from providing their services via WhatsApp in the European Economic Area (EEA).
The simultaneous move from management agencies shows increasing pressure on Meta in ensuring a fair competitive environment, especially in the context of AI chatbot becoming a key area of the digital economy.
