The Competition and Market Authority, acting in close cooperation with the relevant offices of the European Commission, has decided to open an investigation against Meta for alleged abuse of a dominant position in violation of Article 102 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFUE). “Meta,” reads a note, "which holds a dominant position in the market for app-based communication services, as of March 2025 decided to pre-install its own Artificial Intelligence service, called Meta AI, combining it with the WhatsApp app without users having asked for it. Moreover, Meta AI has been placed on the screen in a prominent position and integrated into the search bar". “Meta AI is among the Chatbot or AI Assistant services that, by exploiting artificial intelligence technologies, answer generalist queries of various kinds and enable forms of interaction similar to so-called virtual assistants,” the note continues. "Through the pairing of Meta AI with WhatsApp, Meta appears to be able to pull its user base into the new market, not through competition based on merits, but by ‘imposing’ on users the availability of the two separate services with potential prejudice to competing services. In the Authority's view, therefore, there is a risk that users could become ‘locked in’ or functionally dependent on Meta AI even as that service, using the information provided over time, would be able to provide increasingly useful and relevant answers." As a result, Authority officials carried out inspections at the offices of Meta's Italian subsidiary, Facebook Italy S.r.l., with the help of the Antitrust Special Unit of the Guardia di Finanza.