Meta Bans General-Purpose AI Chatbots from WhatsApp, Favoring Its Own AI Assistant

WhatssApp changes its terms to bar general purpose chatbots from its platform | TechCrunch

Meta-owned chat app WhatsApp changed its business API policy this week to ban general-purpose chatbots from its platform. The move will likely affect WhatsApp-based assistants of companies like OpenAI, Perplexity, Khosla Ventures-backed Luzia, and General Catalyst-backed Poke. The company has added a new section to address "AI providers" in its business API terms, focusing on general-purpose chatbots. The terms, which will go into effect on January 15, 2026, say that Meta won't allow AI model providers to distribute their AI assistants on WhatsApp. Providers and developers of artificial intelligence or machine learning technologies, including but not limited to large language models, generative artificial intelligence platforms, general-purpose artificial intelligence assistants, or similar technologies as determined by Meta in its sole discretion ("AI Providers"), are strictly prohibited from accessing or using the WhatsApp Business Solution, whether directly or indirectly, for the purposes of providing, delivering, offering, selling, or otherwise making available such technologies when such technologies are the primary (rather than incidental or ancillary) functionality being made available for use, as determined by Meta in its sole discretion. Meta confrimed this move to TechCrunch and specified that this move doesn't affect businesses that are using AI to serve customers on WhatsApp. For instance, a travel company running a bot for customer service won't be barred from the service. The company's rationale behind this move is that WhatsApp Business API is designed for businesses serving customers rather than acting as a platform for chatbot distribution. The company said that while it built the API for these use cases, in recent months, it saw an unanticipated use case of serving general-purpose chatbots. "The purpose of the WhatsApp Business API is to help businesses provide customer support and send relevant updates. Our focus is on supporting the tens of thousands of businesses who are building these experiences on WhatsApp," a Meta spokesperson said in a comment to TechCrunch. Meta said that the new chatbot use cases put a lot of burden on its system with increased message volume and required a different kind of support, which the company wasn't ready for. The company is banning use cases that falls outside "the intended design and strategic focus" of the API. The move will effectively make WhatsApp moot as a platform to distribute AI solutions like assistants or agents. It also means Meta AI is the only assistant available on the chat app. Last year, OpenAI launched ChatGPT on WhatsApp, and earlier this year, Perplexity launched its own bot on the chat app to tap into the user base of more than 3 billion people. Both of the bots could answer queries, understand media files, answer questions about them, reply to voice notes, and generate images. This likely generated a lot of message volume. However, there was a bigger issue for Meta. WhatsApp's Business API is one of the primary ways the chat app makes money. It charges businesses based on different message templates like marketing, utility, authentication, and support. As there wasn't any provision for chatbots in this API design, WhatsApp wasn't able to charge them. During Meta's Q1 2025 earnings calls, Mark Zuckerberg pointed out that business messaging is a big opportunity for the company the bring in revenue. "Right now, the vast majority of our business is advertising in feeds on Facebook and Instagram," he said. "But WhatsApp now has more than 3 billion monthly [active users], with more than 100 million people in the US and growing quickly there. Messenger is also used by more than a billion people each month, and there are now as many messages sent each day on Instagram as there are on Messenger. Business messaging should be the next pillar of our business."

Meta Says No More General Purpose Chatbots on WhatsApp (Except Its Own)

(Credit: Algi Febri Sugita/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images) If you're one of the millions of people using the WhatsApp versions of tools like OpenAI's ChatGPT, bad news -- you'll only have a few more months to enjoy the service. Meta has banned general purpose chatbots from the platform, following a recent change to the terms and conditions of the WhatsApp Business API, first spotted by TechCrunch. The move could impact the WhatsApp clients of tools like ChatGPT, which launched in December 2024, along with numerous other WhatsApp chatbots that have appeared over the past year. These include AI search engine Perplexity's WhatsApp chatbot, which launched in April of this year, as well as lesser-known products like Latin America focused chatbot Luzia. The good news is that the new ban won't come into effect until Jan. 15, 2026, giving users months to find replacement solutions. Following the change, "large language models, generative artificial intelligence platforms, general-purpose artificial intelligence assistants, or similar technologies" are now strictly prohibited from accessing or using the WhatsApp Business Solution "when such technologies are the primary (rather than incidental or ancillary) functionality being made available for use." While general purpose chatbots like ChatGPT will be banned going forward, businesses will be allowed to maintain their own consumer-facing chatbots for interacting with customers. For example, a local takeaway firm managing its orders. And while users won't be able to chat directly with general purpose chatbots via WhatsApp Business, companies will still be able to use data gathered via the messaging app for AI training. This means Meta AI, launched in August 2024, will now be the sole chatbot general purpose chatbot available on the platform. Justifying the move, Meta told TechCrunch that it banned business API use cases falling outside "the intended design and strategic focus" of the API, adding that third-party chatbots were placing a burden on its systems and support teams. Meta.ai, though launching years after competitors like Google Gemini, may be catching up to its long-established rivals. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg claimed in May that his company had hit one billion monthly users across its AI tools -- though it was unclear exactly how many of those monthly users were interacting with the tool directly.