The European Commission has classified ChatGPT as a search engine. Monday’s designation brings the chatbot under the Digital Services Act as a Very Large Online Search Engine, alongside Reddit and Roblox, which have been designated as Very Large Online Platforms.
ChatGPT is the first AI chatbot to be designated under the regime. The Commission announced the decision after signalling in July that it intended to act as soon as August.
The designation itself follows a fairly simple calculation. Services with more than 45 million monthly users in the EU fall under the DSA’s threshold, and ChatGPT reported 159 million monthly active users across the six months to March 2026.
Reddit and Roblox also cleared the threshold, although by a smaller margin. Reddit reported 57.2 million monthly users, while Roblox had roughly 48 million, putting both above the limit but well below ChatGPT’s reported reach.
The more unusual part is the decision to treat ChatGPT as a search engine. A chatbot that responds to questions in prose is now being regulated in the same category as services that organise and direct users to information on the web.
