WhatsApp pauses chatbot restrictions for Brazilian users after regulator pushback

Meta Platform’s messaging services app, WhatsApp, is reportedly still enabling AI providers access to users with Brazilian numbers as the country ordered the firm to halt implementing restrictions imposed under its new policy.

Brazil’s regulatory authorities asked WhatsApp to suspend a new policy, which comes into effect on Thursday, 15 January, that stops third-party general-purpose chatbots from being offered on the platform through its business API. Italy has also been exempted from the ban after regulators in that country raised concerns over the new policy.

WhatsApp is giving a 90-day grace period beginning Thursday, 15 January, to AI providers and developers, instructing them to stop responding to user queries on the chat app, as well as notify users that their chatbots will no longer work on WhatsApp.

WhatsApp halts implementation of the policy in Brazil

However, according to TechCrunch, WhatsApp’s parent company, Meta, has told developers that they do not need to notify users with Brazilian contacts with code +55 of any changes or stop offering their services as per a notice to AI providers.

“The requirement to cease responding to user queries and implement pre-approved auto-reply language (mentioned below) before January 15, 2026, no longer applies when messaging people with a Brazil country code (+55),” reads the notice seen by TechCrunch.

General-purpose chatbots like ChatGPT and Grok stand to be affected by the new policy on the WhatsApp platform. The policy does not prohibit businesses from providing customer service via bots within the platform to their customers.

However, the Brazilian antitrust body CADE indicated that it will probe Meta’s terms and assess if they do not hinder competition and favour its Meta AI, which is offered on WhatsApp.

On Monday, it revealed it had opened an investigation into the matter and that it would also suspend Meta’s WhatsApp Business tool’s new terms in the country while evaluating the case.

CADE raised concerns that there were potential anti-competition practices in the new policy with regard to the access and offering by AI tool providers of their tech to WhatsApp users.

This is not the first time that the social media giant has faced hurdles over its new policy. Meta has previously provided similar exemptions in Italy after the country’s regulatory authorities took issue with the new policy late last year.

As previously reported by Cryptopolitan, the EU regulators also intensified their investigations of the social media giant’s use of AI in WhatsApp late last year, focusing mainly on the “Meta AI” system, which was launched earlier in March.

Meta has, however, maintained that AI chatbots strain its systems, which were developed for different uses of its business API. According to TechCrunch, the firm has previously indicated that people who want to use different chatbots could do so outside its WhatsApp platform.

“These claims are fundamentally flawed,” a WhatsApp spokesperson said in response to CADE’s probe on Tuesday.

“The emergence of AI chatbots on our Business API put a strain on our systems that they were not designed to support,” said the spokesperson, further indicating that the route to market for AI firms should be the app stores themselves, websites, and industry partnerships, and “not the WhatsApp Business Platform.”

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