Can you put an AI agent on WhatsApp?
Meta banned general-purpose AI assistants from the WhatsApp API, regulators ordered them back, and Meta launched its own. What that leaves you able to build.
If you are building an assistant that answers anything a person asks, WhatsApp is the one major channel where your right to be there has been decided by a competition regulator rather than by a product decision. That is unusual enough to be worth the whole page, and it is the reason only 10 of the 39 agents in this directory reach WhatsApp at all.
The rule
On 15 October 2025 Meta changed the WhatsApp Business Solution terms to exclude general-purpose AI assistants from the API. Meta's definition is functional rather than about who you are: a bot powered by a large language model, handling open-domain conversations on any topic, not restricted to a specific business process, acting as a general assistant. New accounts were bound immediately. Existing accounts had until 15 January 2026, when it took effect for everyone.
Structured bots were never in scope and still are not. Support, order tracking, bookings, notifications, authentication: all fine, all encouraged. The line Meta drew is between AI used to run a business process and AI that is itself the product.
For everything catalogued on this site, that line is the wrong side of the fence. An agent you text to sort your week is exactly the thing the rule names.
What happened next
Italy moved first. Its competition authority had opened a case in July 2025 over Meta AI's preinstallation in WhatsApp, and on 24 December 2025 it imposed interim measures suspending the clauses. Meta's response was to keep several assistants running in Italy while continuing to block them everywhere else, which is a fair summary of how much the rule was about product policy.
The European Commission then ran the same argument at EEA scale. A statement of objections in February 2026, a supplementary one after Meta's March modifications introduced fees the Commission read as a barrier by another route, and on 9 June 2026 an interim measures decision ordering Meta to reinstate third-party AI assistants on the same terms as before 15 October 2025, within five working days, lasting until the investigation concludes.
The complainant was The Interaction Company of California, which builds Poke, described in its own filing as a messaging-first AI assistant reaching users through the WhatsApp for Business API. A listing in this directory is the reason the channel is open to the rest of them.
And then Meta launched its own
On 8 September 2026 Meta launched Muse, a general-purpose personal agent that handles email, travel, bookings and long-running plans, reachable in its own app and directly inside WhatsApp. By Meta's published definition, that is a general-purpose AI assistant on WhatsApp.
The two things sit together awkwardly and it is worth being precise about why. The rule binds parties to the WhatsApp Business Solution terms, and Meta is not a party to its own commercial terms: Muse is not a business messaging integration, it is the platform shipping a feature. So there is no contradiction in the legal sense, and there is a very large one in the practical sense, which is what the Commission's case is about. Every other assistant on this channel is there on terms Meta writes and a regulator is currently enforcing. Meta's is there because Meta owns the app.
What this means for what you build
If you are building a general-purpose assistant. You can be on WhatsApp today. Access was restored under an interim measures decision that lasts until the investigation ends, and the investigation has no published end date. That is a real permission with an expiry you do not control, so treat WhatsApp as a channel you can win users on and not as the only place your product exists. Every listing here that reaches WhatsApp also reaches somewhere else.
If you are building a structured business bot. None of this touches you. Build it.
If you are choosing a channel from scratch. The comparison of iMessage, SMS, WhatsApp and RCS covers reach and cost. This page is the other half of that decision: on WhatsApp the platform owner is also your competitor, on iMessage it is not, and Apple's programme is closed to almost everyone instead.
Whichever you pick. Write down what happens to your product if the channel closes. The nine WhatsApp agents in this directory spent five months on the wrong side of a policy change none of them could appeal on their own, and the one that could afford competition counsel is the reason the rest came back.
Sources
Meta's WhatsApp Business Solution terms of 15 October 2025 and the compliance date of 15 January 2026. The Italian competition authority's case A576 and its interim measures of 24 December 2025. The European Commission's interim measures decision of 9 June 2026 and the statements of objections preceding it. Checked 9 September 2026.