The US software company OpenAI is reportedly expected to fall under the scope of the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA), which implies stricter regulation. According to reports citing sources within the Commission, the European Commission plans to classify the company as a very large online search engine soon. The DSA governs both extensive platforms and very large search engines, imposing additional requirements specifically on the latter. A company qualifies as “very large” either by being a platform or a search engine that surpasses 45 million monthly active users within the EU.
OpenAI significantly exceeds this threshold. Specific data shows that the search function feature of ChatGPT recorded an average of approximately 120.4 million monthly active users in the EU over the six-month period ending in September 2025. Crucially, this figure relates exclusively to users who actively utilized the search function, and does not account for overall usage of the entire ChatGPT platform.
When contacted, OpenAI declined to issue a statement regarding the procedure. However, a spokesperson for the EU Commission told the “Handelsblatt” that the user data provided is currently undergoing review.
