The EU just decided your AI assistant is a search engine
On 31st Aug’26, the European Commission designated ChatGPT a Very Large Online Search Engine under the Digital Services Act; the same regulatory category as Google. It sits with Reddit and Roblox designated as Very Large Online Platforms. The trigger was the 45-million monthly EU user threshold, which each service declared it meets. The three now have four months, to January 2027, to assess and mitigate systemic risks stemming from their service and algorithmic systems, covering illegal content, harm to minors, users' physical and mental wellbeing, fundamental rights, electoral processes and public security.
What it actually means
Brussels looked at a chat box that reads the web and filed it under search. The regulator saying out loud what your analytics have been hinting at for a year: the assistant is where discovery happens now, not a novelty sitting on top of it. Two consequences if you build with AI. If your product is consumer-facing in Europe and answers questions by reading the web, 45 million users is a threshold now, not a milestone; the obligations arrive with the growth, and they arrive as search engine obligations. If you're also on the other side of it, being found through the assistant, stop treating that as an experimental channel. The regulator has just given it the same standing as the one your entire marketing budget is built around.
The assistant isn't a channel any more. The regulator just classed it as the channel.
45mthe EU user count that turns an AI product into a regulated search engine
Source: European Commission · Tuesday 1 September 2026