The COMESA Competition and Consumer Commission has initiated a formal antitrust investigation into Meta over alleged monopolistic practices involving WhatsApp's AI integration.

The technological landscape of Africa is bracing for a monumental regulatory showdown as the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) Competition and Consumer Commission (CCCC) launches a formal investigation into Meta Platforms Ireland Limited. The probe centers on explosive allegations that the tech behemoth is abusing its dominant market position to systematically exclude competing Artificial Intelligence (AI) providers from the globally ubiquitous WhatsApp platform.

This unprecedented regulatory action, targeting a market encompassing 21 African member states including Kenya, Uganda, and Zambia, marks a critical turning point. It signals that African regulators are no longer passive observers of the digital economy but active enforcers willing to challenge Silicon Valley monopolies to protect local innovation and consumer choice.

The AdLegal Antitrust Complaint

The genesis of this massive investigation lies in a formal complaint lodged on January 5, 2026, by AdLegal International, a prominent competition and consumer practice group. The complaint was filed under Regulation 67 of the newly promulgated COMESA Competition and Consumer Protection Regulations of 2025.

AdLegal's core argument focuses on Meta's October 2025 amendment to the WhatsApp Business Solution Terms. The advocacy group alleges that these updated terms explicitly prohibit third-party, general-purpose AI chatbots from utilizing WhatsApp's Application Programming Interface (API) to interact with end-users. Simultaneously, Meta has preserved and deeply integrated its own proprietary service, Meta AI, into the application.

• Rival AI products like Grok, Google's Gemini, and OpenAI's ChatGPT are effectively locked out.
• Smaller, regional AI providers such as Luzia and Poke face existential threats without WhatsApp access.
• The policy forces a structural intervention that entrenches Meta as the sole gatekeeper of AI interactions.

Foreclosing the Digital Market Ecosystem

The implications of Meta's policy shift are profound. WhatsApp is not merely a messaging application in East Africa; it is a foundational digital infrastructure. It serves as the primary conduit for e-commerce, customer service, and daily communication for hundreds of millions of citizens and small-to-medium enterprises (SMEs). By restricting API access to competing AI developers, Meta is accused of leveraging its massive user base to stifle competition in the nascent artificial intelligence sector.

AdLegal asserts that this conduct violates multiple facets of COMESA's Regulation 36. Specifically, it deters the entry of new AI companies, prevents fair market competition, and forecloses undertakings that rely on WhatsApp's unparalleled reach to provide digital services. "This is part of our advocacy work to hold tech giants and multinationals accountable while doing business in our markets," stated Aziz Kitaka, AdLegal's Executive Director.

The East African Innovation Ecosystem at Risk

For Kenya's "Silicon Savannah" and the broader East African tech ecosystem, the stakes could not be higher. Regional developers and startups heavily depend on open APIs to build localized solutions, ranging from agricultural advisory bots to fintech customer support. If WhatsApp becomes a closed, walled garden strictly reserved for Meta's proprietary AI, local innovators will lose access to their most critical distribution channel.

The sequencing of Meta's ban—halting new AI chatbots in October 2025 and mandating the cessation of existing ones by January 2026—suggests a calculated strategy to monopolize the space before regional competitors can scale. This risks fragmenting the Common Market for digital services, directly undermining COMESA's foundational objectives of economic integration and borderless digital trade.

Global Precedents and Local Enforcement

COMESA's move does not occur in isolation. Globally, watchdogs including the European Commission and Italy's competition authority have been rigorously scrutinizing Meta's AI policies on WhatsApp for months. However, the CCCC's aggressive posturing demonstrates that African regulatory bodies are aligning with global standards of antitrust enforcement.

While the investigation is in its preliminary stages, stakeholders across the 21 COMESA markets have been invited to submit written feedback before the March 2026 deadline. The eventual outcome could mandate dominant tech companies to adopt open, interoperable digital ecosystems rather than exploiting their network effects to sideline rivals.

"The complaint is a vital signal to multinationals in digital markets that compliance with competition regulations will be fiercely enforced in Africa," noted an antitrust expert reviewing the docket.