In these weeks Several companies that introduced AI assistants on WhatsApp have announced their withdrawal from Meta Messenger. This is the case of bots that provide services via WhatsApp, such as gbt chat, perplexity, copilot, luzia, zapia, book, etc.
Reason: WhatsApp Business Terms have changed and from now on, providers and developers of artificial intelligence or machine learning technologies are “strictly prohibited from accessing or using the WhatsApp Business Solution, whether directly or indirectly, for the purpose of providing, delivering, offering, selling or making available such technologies when such technologies are the primary (and not incidental or ancillary) functionality of the use.”
As the company explained to LA NACION, “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 creating these experiences on WhatsApp.”
the The date on which this measure will take effect is mid-January 2026.but the companies have already begun to announce their withdrawal, but not without causing discontent among their users, who used services such as audio transcription, PDF summary, various queries and automatic reminders.
The problem is that these types of services were a simple way to access AI services without having to install applications: just chatting was enough to access ChatGPT or Zapia. On condition WhatsApp has more than 3 billion monthly active users Using AI bots was a great shortcut to making it all accessible.
This is why Meta decided to close the doors and continue promoting its own messenger tool, Meta artificial intelligence.
in argentina, One of the most widely used bots for transcribing voice messages was ZapiaWhich announced its withdrawal within the next few days. He posted in a statement on social networks: “As of December 22, we will no longer respond from WhatsApp. Meta has changed the rules. But if we know how to do anything, it is to reinvent ourselves.”
Luzia, another very popular robot with similar functions, did the same. Both companies help tooThey have banded together to file legal actions in Brazil and Europe to prevent Meta from banning their service In the instant messaging tool. They did this based on precautionary measures to keep access to WhatsApp active while the legal dispute was resolved. the Joint legal proceduressubmitted on November 21, 2025 by Factoria Elcano (Assistant Officer Luzia) and Brain Logic (Owner Zappia) confirms that Meta’s conduct constitutes a potential violation of the competition rules, This is something the European Union is also investigating.
The new WhatsApp regulations decision excludes Meta Business customers. Any company that provides its services through WhatsApp Assistant will continue to provide the same service.
What will happen from now on is that Meta AI’s competitors will not be able to access its infrastructure and audience without paying for it. WhatsApp originally designed its business platform to Companies will communicate with customers (support, notifications, etc.) Not as a distribution channel for massive chatbots.