EU treats ChatGPT like Google Search and Bing under its online rules

The European Commission decided on August 31 that ChatGPT counts as a very large online search engine. The label comes from the Digital Services Act, the European Union’s rulebook for big online services. It puts OpenAI’s assistant in the same group as Google Search and Microsoft Bing, which until now were the only two services in it. In the same decision, Reddit and Roblox were named very large online platforms. Twenty-eight services are now watched directly by the Commission.

The decision rests on numbers the companies reported themselves. OpenAI said it had an average of 159.1 million monthly users in the European Union over the six months to March 31, 2026. That is more than three times the threshold of forty-five million. Reddit reported around 57.2 million and Roblox roughly 46.6 million. Day-to-day supervision of ChatGPT will sit with Coimisiún na Meán, the Irish media regulator, because OpenAI’s European company is based in Dublin.

Henna Virkkunen, the Commission’s executive vice-president for tech sovereignty, said the three services “will now be held to a higher standard of scrutiny and accountability” in the European Union. OpenAI did not comment when the decision was announced.

Brussels spent a year deciding if a chatbot is a search engine

For the search industry, the decision answers a question Brussels had been considering for more than a year. Is a chatbot that answers questions using results from the web a search engine in law? The answer is yes. It comes just as OpenAI is building an advertising business inside ChatGPT. The new status brings the Digital Services Act’s advertising rules with it. For every ad, ChatGPT will have to say who paid for it and why a particular user saw it. It will also have to keep a public list of its ads for a year. Marketers buying ads in ChatGPT in Europe should expect the same openness they already accept on Google and Meta.

OpenAI has four months to comply. By the end of December 2026 it should have its first assessment of the risks its service creates, arrangements for an independent audit, and ways for regulators and approved researchers to reach its data. The Commission can fine a service that does not comply up to six percent of its global yearly turnover. It has used that power before, with penalties against X and Temu over the past year.

The label may help OpenAI claim Google’s search data

The decision also feeds into a separate process under the Digital Markets Act, the European Union’s law on competition between big tech firms. There the Commission has ordered Google to share search data with rival search engines, a group that now clearly includes AI chatbots. Search Engine Journal notes that ChatGPT’s new status could strengthen OpenAI’s case for getting that data. Whether Brussels looks next at Perplexity or at Google’s own Gemini app may depend on the user numbers those services report in their next filings.