ChatGPT went live again on WhatsApp across the EEA on July 13, after the European Commission forced Meta to reopen the platform to rival AI assistants it had shut out. OpenAI switched the service back on within days of a June 9 interim order that gave Meta five working days to restore free WhatsApp Business API access or face fines up to 10% of global turnover. Meta had barred general-purpose AI assistants like ChatGPT, Copilot, and Perplexity from the API in October 2025, exempting only Meta AI, and later proposed per-message fees the Commission deemed a de facto ban. Brussels’ order, one of the rarest tools in EU competition law and only its second use in over two decades, stands despite Meta’s appeal, which does not pause compliance.
