As of August 31, 2026, the European Commission has designated ChatGPT as a Very Large Online Search Engine under the Digital Services Act, Euronews and the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reported, placing an AI chatbot in the European Union’s strictest online-safety tier for the first time.
Both outlets reported the decision on 31 August 2026. They said the Commission the same day designated Reddit and Roblox as Very Large Online Platforms. Designated services have four months to meet the enhanced duties that apply to very large services. The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung said OpenAI must comply with those stricter requirements from the end of December, and that ChatGPT, Reddit and Roblox were already subject to the Digital Services Act’s general rules.
Euronews reported that the Commission described ChatGPT as a hybrid service that qualifies as an online search engine because it responds to user prompts and queries, including by searching the web. The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung said it was the first time an artificial intelligence system had been classed as a very large online search engine, a category that had previously included Bing and Google Search.
The figures that put the service over the law’s 45 million user threshold apply to ChatGPT’s search function, not to ChatGPT as a whole. Euronews said OpenAI disclosed that the search function averaged about 159 million monthly active users in the EU for the six months ending March 2026. Diario de Sevilla reported that OpenAI Ireland Limited had told Brussels the integrated search tool averaged 159.1 million monthly active users in the Union in the half-year closed 31 March 2026.
Agence Europe reported in October 2025 that OpenAI had earlier put the search function at an average of 120.4 million monthly active users in the EU, already above the threshold. In February 2026, Commissioner Henna Virkkunen told members of the European Parliament that the Commission aimed to conclude the ChatGPT designation procedure in the first quarter of 2026, without prejudging the outcome.
The Next Web, reporting in July on a then-planned designation, said Very Large Online Search Engine status would bring audits, risk assessments and fines of up to 6 percent of global turnover for non-compliance.