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Italy drops antitrust probe into Meta’s WhatsApp “Meta AI” after EU expands its case to cover Italy
The Apex Times

THE APEX TIMES

Business/The Apex Times/Jun 8, 1:56 PM EDT

Italy drops antitrust probe into Meta’s WhatsApp “Meta AI” after EU expands its case to cover Italy

The Italian competition authority, AGCM, said it closed its investigation into whether Meta abused its dominance by installing and promoting its AI assistant inside WhatsApp, pointing to a parallel European Commission probe that now includes Italy.

By The Apex Times Newsroom3 min readAI-assisted Apex article

Meta Platforms’ integration of its “Meta AI” assistant into WhatsApp has cleared a procedural hurdle in Italy. On Monday, June 8, 2026, the country’s competition authority said it dropped an investigation into whether Meta abused its dominant position by installing its artificial intelligence tool on the messaging service, citing the European Commission’s decision to expand its own inquiry to cover the Italian territory.

Italy’s probe focused on complaints that Meta’s control of WhatsApp gave its own AI assistant an advantage over rivals. According to the Italian authority’s earlier filings, Meta had moved to pre-install Meta AI on WhatsApp without a prior request from users, prompting scrutiny under EU competition rules that address abuses of dominance.

Before Italy closed its case, regulators in both jurisdictions had been actively involved. The AGCM launched its investigation in July 2025, and said it was conducted in close cooperation with the European Commission. It characterized Meta as holding a dominant position in app-based consumer communications, and it tied the concern to Meta’s bundling of Meta AI with WhatsApp rather than treating the AI feature as a separate, freely comparable offering.

The Italian authority later moved to require changes on an aspect of Meta’s WhatsApp business-facing AI policy. In December 2025, AGCM ordered Meta to suspend terms that excluded competing AI chatbot services from WhatsApp, describing the alleged competitive harm as rooted in how Meta integrated Meta AI into WhatsApp and gave it greater prominence than rival services.

In April 2026, the European Commission increased the scope of its parallel antitrust work. In a press release dated April 15, 2026, the Commission said it intended to order Meta to reinstate third-party AI assistants’ access to WhatsApp under conditions comparable to before Meta’s October 15, 2025 policy change. The Commission added that, because Italy had opened its own investigation, Italy was previously excluded from the Commission’s case, and that the Commission had now expanded its investigation to cover Italy as well.

The AGCM’s Monday announcement fits into that sequence. Reuters reported that the Italian authority closed its probe because the European Commission had extended its investigation to include the Italian territory, effectively consolidating the issue at the EU level for Italy’s market.

Meta AI is Meta’s general-purpose AI assistant, a chatbot intended to answer questions and help users across apps. Regulators’ interest in the WhatsApp placement and access policies is part of a broader EU push to prevent dominant platforms from using distribution, default settings, or app-store-like control to tilt fast-growing AI assistant markets toward their own products.

What remains uncertain is the ultimate legal outcome. AGCM’s closure of its investigation does not, by itself, resolve whether Meta’s behavior violates competition law under EU standards. The European Commission’s case continues, and the April 15, 2026 release made clear that interim steps and preliminary findings do not prejudge a final decision on the substance of the conduct. What to watch next is how the EU Commission rules on access for third-party AI assistants and whether it imposes remedies that reach beyond WhatsApp’s consumer interface to related business tools.

Why It Matters

  • The consolidation of the case at the EU level could speed up how regulators decide what remedies apply to AI assistants distributed through major messaging platforms.
  • The dispute highlights how “default” placement and access controls in dominant apps can become antitrust issues as AI features become a new distribution battleground.
  • If the EU Commission orders restoring access for third-party AI assistants, it may force Meta to adjust not only WhatsApp’s consumer AI entry points but also business tools connected to AI interactions.
  • The outcome could influence how other large platforms structure partnerships, APIs, and distribution terms for AI assistants competing with their own models.

Sources

Key Facts

  • Italy’s AGCM dropped an investigation into Meta over allegations of abusing dominance by installing Meta AI within WhatsApp, reported on Monday, June 8, 2026.
  • AGCM said it closed the probe because the European Commission expanded its own antitrust investigation to include Italy.
  • AGCM’s earlier investigation centered on whether Meta’s bundling and promotion of Meta AI on WhatsApp disadvantaged rival AI services.
  • AGCM previously ordered Meta to suspend WhatsApp terms excluding competing AI chatbots, according to its December 2025 actions.
  • In April 2026, the European Commission said it sought interim measures that would restore third-party AI assistants’ access to WhatsApp under conditions similar to before Meta’s October 15, 2025 policy change.
  • The European Commission said Italy had been excluded from its investigation earlier only because Italy’s national authority had opened its own probe, and that the Commission then expanded to cover Italy.

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Italy drops antitrust probe into Meta’s WhatsApp “Meta AI” after EU expands its case to cover Italy | The Apex Times