WhatsApp is allowing AI providers to continue offering their chatbots to users with Brazilian phone numbers. This decision comes just days after the country’s competition regulator ordered the company to suspend its new policy banning third-party, general-purpose chatbots from being offered on the app via its business API.
Under the new policy, which went into effect recently, the company had provided a 90-day grace period starting January 15. It mandated developers and AI providers to cease responding to user queries on the chat app and to notify users that their chatbots would stop working on WhatsApp.
Now, Meta has told developers they do not have to notify users with Brazilian phone numbers, which use the country code +55, of any changes. They also do not have to cease offering their services. This information comes from a notice to AI providers. The notice states that the requirement to cease responding to user queries and to implement pre-approved auto-reply language before January 15, 2026, no longer applies when messaging people with a Brazil country code. WhatsApp did not immediately respond to a query seeking to confirm this decision.
The policy impacts general-purpose chatbots like ChatGPT and Grok on the platform. It is important to note that the policy does not stop businesses from providing customer service via bots within WhatsApp to their customers.
In its notice, Brazil’s competition agency said it would investigate if Meta’s terms are exclusionary to competitors and unduly favor Meta AI, the company’s own chatbot that is offered on WhatsApp.
Meta has previously provided a similar exemption to users in Italy after that country’s competition agency took issue with the policy in December. Separately, the European Union has also opened an antitrust investigation into the new rules.
The company has consistently maintained that AI chatbots are straining its systems, which were designed for different uses of its business API. Meta has even said in the past that people who want to use different chatbots can do so outside of WhatsApp. A WhatsApp spokesperson responded to the Brazilian probe by stating these claims are fundamentally flawed. The spokesperson explained that the emergence of AI chatbots on the Business API put a strain on systems not designed to support them, and that the route to market for AI companies is through app stores, websites, and industry partnerships, not the WhatsApp Business Platform.