EU Designates ChatGPT a 'Very Large' Search Engine, Citing 159 Million Users

News Summary

The European Commission has designated OpenAI's ChatGPT as a "Very Large Online Search Engine" (VLOSE) under the EU's Digital Services Act (DSA), placing the chatbot in the same regulatory tier as Google Search and Microsoft Bing. The decision, announced on August 31, 2026 (Central European Time), marks the first time a generative AI chatbot has been classified this way, and it comes alongside separate "Very Large Online Platform" (VLOP) designations for Reddit and Roblox under the same law.

Why ChatGPT Was Designated

The DSA requires the Commission to designate any online platform or search engine that reaches at least 45 million average monthly active users in the EU as a VLOP or VLOSE, triggering the law's strictest tier of obligations. OpenAI reported approximately 159.1 million average monthly EU users for the six-month period ending March 31, 2026, according to figures cited by multiple outlets tracking the filing, including ppc.land and cryptobriefing.com. That figure represents a sharp jump from the roughly 120.4 million monthly EU users OpenAI had reported for the six-month period ending in September 2025, according to TechRepublic's review of the company's published data.

Regulators classified ChatGPT as a search engine rather than a platform because of how users interact with its search-style features, even though the product does not return traditional list-style "blue link" results. Reddit and Roblox, by contrast, were designated as VLOPs, with reported EU user bases of about 57.2 million and 48 million respectively, according to cryptobriefing.com.

What the Designation Requires

Once notified of the designation, a company has four months to comply with the DSA's additional obligations for very large platforms and search engines. Multiple reports place the compliance deadline around the end of December 2026, four months after the August 31 notification. The core requirements include:

• Conducting and publishing annual systemic risk assessments covering issues such as the spread of illegal content, risks to elections and civic discourse, harms to minors, and effects on users' mental health and wellbeing
• Submitting to independent, external annual audits of compliance, rather than relying on internal reviews
• Sharing risk and compliance data with the European Commission, national regulators, and vetted independent researchers
• Establishing a dedicated internal compliance function and clear points of contact for regulators and users
• Maintaining transparency around advertising, including a public repository of ads served in the EU, when advertising is present on the service

Non-compliance carries significant financial exposure: fines can reach up to 6% of a company's total worldwide annual turnover. Designated services also pay an annual supervisory fee, capped at 0.05% of worldwide net income, to help fund the Commission's oversight work; the Commission reported collecting a total of €54.8 million in such fees from all designated services in the prior year, according to TechRepublic.

OpenAI's Response

OpenAI acknowledged the designation and signaled it intends to comply. A company spokesperson said that "ChatGPT search operates as a search service under the DSA, and we are preparing to meet the additional compliance requirements that come with this Very Large Online Search Engine designation." The spokesperson also framed the designation as a sign of how quickly Europeans have adopted AI-driven search, noting that ChatGPT is one of three search services now designated at this scale in the EU.

Regulatory Context

The VLOSE designation is separate from, and in addition to, obligations OpenAI already faces under the EU's AI Act, which regulates the underlying AI model and its risk profile. Officials have described the DSA designation as focused specifically on how the service interacts with and affects the large number of users in the EU, rather than on the model's technical characteristics. An EU Commission spokesperson previously indicated that classification decisions for large language model-based services would be handled on a "case-by-case" basis rather than through automatic designation once a user threshold is crossed, underscoring that this was a deliberate regulatory determination rather than a purely mechanical one.

As of April 2026, the EU had designated 21 online services as VLOPs or VLOSEs in total, a list that includes major platforms operated by Amazon, Apple, Google, Meta, Microsoft, and X, along with services such as Booking.com, LinkedIn, Zalando, and Pinterest. ChatGPT, Reddit, and Roblox now join that group.

What Happens Next

With the compliance clock now running, OpenAI, Reddit, and Roblox are expected to stand up formal risk-assessment and audit processes ahead of the deadline. The Commission has stated it will directly supervise designated platforms' adherence to the DSA's obligations going forward, with the authority to investigate and levy fines for violations, as it has done previously; X was fined €120 million for transparency violations under the same law. Industry observers expect the ChatGPT designation to serve as an early test case for how EU regulators apply search-engine-style obligations to AI chatbots more broadly, potentially shaping how future AI-powered assistants are classified as they grow their EU user bases.