On August 31, 2026, the European Commission designated ChatGPT a Very Large Online Search Engine under the Digital Services Act — putting it in the same regulatory tier as Google and Bing, with Reddit and Roblox named Very Large Online Platforms the same day.
2026-08-31 · by Moe Ameen
The European Commission announced on August 31, 2026 that it has designated ChatGPT as a Very Large Online Search Engine (VLOSE) under the EU's Digital Services Act (DSA) — the first time a generative-AI chatbot has been placed in that category, which until now held only Google Search and Microsoft Bing. On the same day the Commission designated Reddit and Roblox as Very Large Online Platforms (VLOPs). The three additions bring the total number of DSA-designated very large platforms and search engines to 28.
A service crosses into VLOP/VLOSE territory once it reaches at least 45 million average monthly users in the EU. The Commission described ChatGPT as a "hybrid service" that qualifies as an online search engine because it can engage with and respond to users' prompts and queries, including by searching the web. Reporting on OpenAI's own declaration put ChatGPT's EU reach at roughly 159 million average monthly recipients over the six months ending March 31, 2026 — more than three times the threshold. Reddit and Roblox were reported at about 57 million and 47 million EU users respectively.
The designation is not a finding of wrongdoing; it is a threshold that switches on the DSA's strictest obligations. Designated services get four months (by January 2027) to comply. Those obligations include assessing and mitigating "systemic risks" tied to the service and its algorithmic systems — illegal content, harms to minors, effects on users' well-being and fundamental rights, electoral processes, and public security — completing an annual independent audit, giving the Commission and national regulators access to data (and vetting researchers for systemic-risk research), and, where applicable, offering recommender-system options not based on profiling and maintaining an advertising repository. Non-compliance can carry fines of up to 6% of global annual revenue.
For creators, the headline underneath the legal language is simpler: an EU regulator has now formally treated an AI chatbot as a search engine. The line between "search" and "AI answers" is being erased in law, not just in behavior — and the surface where audiences look for answers keeps fragmenting across engines that each set their own rules.
This news is a signal about where discovery is heading: an AI chatbot is now regulated as a search engine, and "being found" is fragmenting across engines that each set — and keep changing — their own rules. The defensive move isn't to chase whichever surface is hottest this quarter. It's to build a broad, consistent published presence that AI answer engines and social algorithms can actually find and cite, so no single engine's re-regulation can quietly erase you. That footprint is exactly what [Kompozy](/) is built to produce at volume.
Kompozy takes one idea — a topic your audience is clearly asking about — and generates 25–35 on-brand pieces around it: [Persona Shorts](/glossary/persona-shorts) and HeyGen avatar video, brand-exact [Carousel](/glossary/hyperframes) posts, Quote Graphics, a Blog Article, and an Email Newsletter, all written in your voice under the [Persona Brief](/glossary/persona-brief). The blog and long-form text matter more than ever here: written, substantive pages are what an AI-search engine indexes and quotes, while the social cuts keep you present in the feeds. Then [Autopilot](/glossary/autopilot) schedules and publishes the batch across the eight social platforms plus blog and email behind a per-post review — so you're discoverable on every surface at once, not renting visibility from one engine. When the next platform gets re-regulated or reshuffles how it sources answers, a creator already publishing everywhere barely feels it. That resilience is the point: Kompozy makes "be everywhere your audience looks" a repeatable weekly output instead of a scramble.
On August 31, 2026, the European Commission designated ChatGPT a Very Large Online Search Engine (VLOSE) under the Digital Services Act — the first generative-AI chatbot placed in that category, which previously held only Google Search and Microsoft Bing. Reddit and Roblox were designated Very Large Online Platforms the same day.
The Commission described ChatGPT as a "hybrid service" that qualifies as an online search engine because it responds to users' prompts and queries, including by searching the web. It crossed the DSA's designation threshold of 45 million average monthly users in the EU — OpenAI's declaration reportedly put ChatGPT's EU reach around 159 million.
Within four months (by January 2027), it must assess and mitigate systemic risks tied to the service and its algorithms, complete an annual independent audit, give the Commission and national regulators access to data and vet researchers for systemic-risk research, and, where applicable, offer recommender options not based on profiling and keep an ad repository. Non-compliance can carry fines up to 6% of global annual revenue.
It confirms AI chatbots are becoming formal discovery surfaces, not just chat tools — being cited inside an AI answer now matters alongside ranking in classic search. The safest response is a broad, consistent published presence across many surfaces. A tool like Kompozy generates on-brand video, images, a blog, and a newsletter from one idea and publishes them across the eight social platforms plus blog and email, so your visibility isn't hostage to any single engine's changing rules.