After January\u2019s blanket ban and March\u2019s $0.0625-per-message fee, Meta has filed a fresh European Commission proposal: free WhatsApp<\/a> access for OpenAI, Perplexity, and others, up to a usage cap, then a fee.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n Meta has filed a fresh European Commission proposal that would give rival AI chatbots, including OpenAI\u2019s ChatGPT, Perplexity, Anthropic\u2019s Claude and others, free access to WhatsApp in Europe up to a usage threshold, then start charging beyond it, <\/span>Reuters reported on Monday<\/span><\/a>, citing people familiar with the matter. <\/span><\/p>\n The proposal was submitted last week after the European Commission signalled it was considering a formal order forcing Meta to open WhatsApp to third-party AI services under the Digital Markets Act.<\/span><\/p>\n Meta blocked all third-party AI assistants on WhatsApp on 15 January, an action that affected ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, Perplexity, and several smaller third-party assistants that had built distribution inside the messaging app. <\/span><\/p>\n TNW City Coworking space – Where your best work happens<\/p>\n A workspace designed for growth, collaboration, and endless networking opportunities in the heart of tech.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The blanket ban triggered antitrust attention in both Brussels and Brazil. Meta partially relented in March, agreeing to open WhatsApp to rival chatbots but at a $0.0625-per-message fee, a structure both regulators and the affected AI companies treated as commercially prohibitive.<\/span><\/p>\n The new proposal is the third iteration of the same posture. Free access up to a usage cap is the structure that regulators across multiple jurisdictions have been pushing for since the original ban. Meta is attempting to land a compromise that satisfies the European Commission\u2019s antitrust review without entirely abandoning the per-message-revenue framework it tried to introduce in March. The Commission is reviewing the proposal alongside the broader Digital Markets Act gatekeeper obligations workstream.<\/span><\/p>\n What the new structure actually delivers in practice depends on the cap.<\/span>\u00a0Meta\u2019s submission may also include a one-month preferential access window for rival companies to integrate with WhatsApp\u2019s developer infrastructure before pricing takes effect. <\/span><\/p>\n If the threshold is high enough to allow normal consumer use without triggering the fee, the proposal materially changes the competitive dynamics of the European AI-chatbot market. If it is calibrated to trigger the fee within days, the proposal is functionally a rebadge of the March position.<\/span><\/p>\n The stakes for the affected AI companies are significant. WhatsApp has roughly 2bn monthly active users globally and approximately 500m monthly active users in Europe; the platform is, in regions like Brazil, India, and parts of the Mediterranean, the default consumer messaging infrastructure. <\/span><\/p>\n Direct chatbot distribution inside WhatsApp has been an established product category for several years and<\/span>\u00a0Perplexity and ChatGPT have been individually accessible inside the app even during periods when the blanket ban was supposed to be in effect. <\/span><\/p>\n The fact that the ban has not produced a clean technical shutdown is part of what has given the regulators leverage in the current negotiation.<\/span><\/p>\n The wider Digital Markets Act context is the part this story sits inside. The European Commission has been <\/span>running a comparable enforcement track against Apple<\/span> over App Store anti-steering and adjacent gatekeeper-platform questions, and the WhatsApp case is structurally similar: a dominant platform whose interoperability obligations under the DMA cut against the platform\u2019s own commercial incentive to favour first-party AI products. <\/span><\/p>\n Meta\u2019s first-party AI product, Meta AI, sits inside WhatsApp by default; every consumer interaction the platform routes to Meta AI is a consumer interaction not routed to OpenAI or Perplexity. The Commission\u2019s posture, on the available evidence, is that the DMA\u2019s interoperability obligations apply to that competitive trade specifically.<\/span><\/p>\n The competitive read for the agent-distribution category is sharper. <\/span>Dust\u2019s $40m Series<\/a> B<\/span> landed earlier this month on a thesis that the AI agent that wins is the one with frictionless distribution inside the user\u2019s existing communication surface. Whether OpenAI, Perplexity and Anthropic can build sustainable economics around WhatsApp-routed consumer AI usage depends on where the Commission lands the cap.<\/span><\/p>\n Meta did not respond to Reuters\u2019 request for comment. The Commission\u2019s review timeline is not public but is, on standard Article 8 DMA cadence, expected to produce a formal decision inside the next several months. The previous January-to-March cycle, <\/span>documented in industry coverage<\/span><\/a>, suggests the operative compromise can move quickly once both sides have a structure to work from. The free-up-to-a-cap framework is that structure.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n If you liked the article, do not forget to share it with your friends. Follow us on\u00a0Google News<\/a><\/span>\u00a0too, click on the star and choose us from your favorites.<\/span><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n If you want to read more like this article, you can visit our Technology category.<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n
![](\"https:\/\/media.thenextweb.com\/2026\/05\/WhatsApp.avif\")
<\/p>\n