Microsoft’s AI chatbot, Copilot, will no longer be available on WhatsApp after January 15, the company has announced. After that date, WhatsApp users will no longer be able to chat with the AI unless they switch to Microsoft’s Copilot mobile apps or use the chatbot via the web.
The company explained that it was removing Copilot from the popular messaging app to comply with revised WhatsApp platform policies, announced last month.
At the time, the Meta-owned messaging service said it would no longer support general-purpose AI chatbots using its WhatsApp Business API to serve their customers. Instead, he wanted to reserve those resources for other types of businesses. This shift doesn’t mean businesses can’t use AI to serve their own customers. This does, however, put an end to WhatsApp being a distribution channel for AI chatbots, which will impact companies like Microsoft, OpenAI, Perplexity and others.
OpenAI had already announced plans to end its WhatsApp integration in January.
Unfortunately for Copilot users on WhatsApp, their chat history is not preserved when they migrate to the Microsoft platform because access to the chatbot on WhatsApp was not authenticated. Microsoft recommends that users who need to preserve their conversations for future reference export them using WhatsApp’s built-in tools before the January 15 deadline.
