Menlo Park appeals: ‘overregulation’. New front with Apple on Siri AI
(by Alessandra Briganti) The European Union accelerates its counteroffensive to prevent Big Tech from replicating the monopolies of the past in the emerging sector of artificial intelligence and in particular that of AI assistants. To do so, the EU Commission imposed precautionary measures on Meta, ordering it to restore free access to WhatsApp for competing AI assistants. The Menlo Park giant now has five days to comply. Otherwise, it risks fines of up to 10% of the global turnover of the previous financial year, to which are added potential daily penalties of up to 5% of the average daily turnover.
Meta’s response was immediate, announcing an appeal against a provision defined as “over-regulation”. According to a spokesperson, the EU’s decision allows OpenAI and other giants to use a paid service for free, passing the costs on to European companies.
According to the Berlaymont palace, which launched the investigation in December 2025, Cupertino would have held a dominant position in the messaging app market in Europe since at least January 2023. The parent company of Facebook and Instagram, they explain from Brussels, would have abused this dominant position with the new company policy, announced on 15 October last year, which excluded third-party AI assistants from the ‘WhatsApp for Business API’ to leave free rein solely to its AI assistant, Meta AI. The subsequent attempt to readmit competitors for a fee was judged to be an expedient equivalent to the previous ban.
“In rapidly evolving markets, competition can be compromised before a final decision is adopted”, explained the Vice President of the Commission, Teresa Ribera, thus justifying the use of precautionary measures, a tool no longer used since 2019. The same measures, she warned, “will remain in force throughout the investigation to prevent damage that is almost impossible to repair”. The head of the Antitrust then rejected the accusations of protectionism, recalling that half of the complainants are AI companies from the United States, and that the only objective remains to protect consumers and innovation.
In terms of competition, another front is opening up, this time with Apple. The Commission rejected Cupertino’s thesis, according to which Brussels’ restrictions on digital markets were the cause of Siri AI’s failure to debut in Europe. The spokesperson of the EU executive for digital affairs, Thomas Regnier, clarified that the decision to postpone the launch of the new voice assistant in the EU is a unilateral choice of the company: “Nothing in the law on digital markets prohibits Apple from doing so”. Under EU rules, Cupertino is required to open its devices to the features of its competitors. Faced with this obligation, the giant requested an exemption which Brussels however deemed “impracticable” both because it would have favored Siri AI to the detriment of competitors and because, as concluded by the spokesperson, “EU law is not negotiable”.
