MENLO PARK, United States: The American tech giant Meta has announced that non-Meta AI chatbots will stop working on WhatsApp from January 15, 2026.
The parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp said that from next month, ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, Perplexity, and other outside AI chatbots will not work on the social media app.
Meta has updated its policy to prohibit “general-purpose” conversational bots from external providers, effectively blocking any AI assistant not built using Meta’s own tools. Large language model (LLM)–powered assistants from OpenAI, Microsoft Azure, or other platforms will no longer be supported.
Developers using these third-party integrations will lose access, as the API will automatically block external AI traffic. However, rule-based bots—older chatbots that follow fixed scripts—along with custom business flows and non-LLM automations, will continue to function under WhatsApp’s Business API, which remains central for customer service and sales communication.
ChatGPT users will be able to migrate their WhatsApp chat history before the cutoff date, but Copilot users will lose access to their conversation history.
The move is motivated both by regulatory concerns and Meta’s strategy to promote its own LLaMA-based AI assistant across all Meta platforms. By limiting external LLMs, Meta aims to centralise AI control, reduce data risks from third-party providers, and decrease reliance on external models.
OpenAI first announced its departure from WhatsApp last month, while Microsoft confirmed that Copilot will no longer be available inside WhatsApp earlier this week.
