{"id":491133,"date":"2026-06-09T19:06:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-09T19:06:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/491133\/"},"modified":"2026-06-09T19:06:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-09T19:06:10","slug":"eu-orders-meta-to-open-whatsapp-to-rival-ai-agents-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/491133\/","title":{"rendered":"EU orders Meta to open WhatsApp to rival AI agents \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

The European Commission<\/a> has ordered Meta<\/a> to restore access to WhatsApp<\/a> for rival tech groups building artificial intelligence (AI)<\/a> assistants, arguing emergency action is needed to stop competition being harmed before a full antitrust investigation is completed. <\/p>\n

The decision marks one of the European Union\u2019s (EU) first big competition interventions in the rapidly developing market for autonomous agents powered by AI models. <\/p>\n

The WhatsApp investigation falls under traditional antitrust laws rather than the Digital Markets Act, the EU\u2019s landmark legislation designed to tackle the dominance of the big online platforms. Antitrust cases usually take more time.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn rapidly evolving markets, competition can be lost long before a final decision is adopted,\u201d said the EU\u2019s competition chief Teresa Ribera on Tuesday, stressing that the decision preserved \u201cchoice for citizens across Europe on the AI assistants they want to use with WhatsApp, without that decision being made for them\u201d.<\/p>\n

She added: \u201cWe cannot let large digital incumbents leverage their dominance of the past.\u201d <\/p>\n

AI start-up Interaction, which develops AI assistant Poke.com, said it was \u201cvery happy\u201d with the commission\u2019s decision.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Meta scores a rare win on EU regulationOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

The move follows an antitrust investigation into the world\u2019s most popular chat app in December last year, after concerns that Meta was using its control of WhatsApp to favour its own AI services.<\/p>\n

The interim measures come days after Meta rolled out its new business agent, enabling WhatsApp\u2019s enterprise users to use AI agents to respond to customers as the company tries to unlock a huge new revenue stream.<\/p>\n

\"\"David McRedmond: \u2018O\u2019Connell Street needs high density housing\u2019 <\/p>\n

The EU is under pressure to wrap up other investigations against US Big Tech companies, such as a prominent case against Google over preferencing its own services in search results and rules on steering users to different applications on the Google Play app store.<\/p>\n

The result of those separate investigations, which are expected to include fines for breaching Brussels\u2019 rules, is politically sensitive as US president Donald Trump has hit out at the EU\u2019s regulatory attacks against US companies.<\/p>\n

Meta said it would appeal against the decision.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe European Commission has decided that OpenAI and some of the largest companies in the world can use the paid-for WhatsApp Business product for free. This is regulatory overreach subsidised by the many European companies that pay.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u2013 Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2026<\/p>\n

.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The European Commission has ordered Meta to restore access to WhatsApp for rival tech groups building artificial intelligence…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":491134,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[220,218,219,1712,61,60,1226,80,15300],"class_list":["post-491133","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-european-commission","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-meta","tag-technology","tag-whatsapp"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/491133","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=491133"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/491133\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/491134"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=491133"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=491133"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=491133"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}