Source: The Brussels Times

The Brussels Times reports that the European Commission has opened a formal investigation into Meta regarding the integration of its AI assistant into WhatsApp. The probe focuses on potential breaches of EU competition rules and the Digital Markets Act (DMA). Regulators are concerned that by embedding Meta AI deeply into the ubiquitously used messaging app, Meta may be unfairly leveraging its market dominance to stifle competition from other AI service providers.

The article notes that the investigation will also examine whether Meta is effectively forcing users to adopt its AI by making it difficult to opt-out or switch to alternatives. Furthermore, the Commission is looking into how user data from WhatsApp is being used to train Meta's AI models, raising potential privacy and data protection issues alongside the antitrust concerns. This probe adds to the growing list of regulatory challenges American tech giants face in the European Union.