The European Commission made a landmark move on August 31: it officially classified ChatGPT as a Very Large Online Search Engine (VLOSE) under the Digital Services Act (DSA). It is the first time a standalone AI chatbot has been placed in the same regulatory category as Google Search and Microsoft Bing.

For businesses that use AI tools to run operations, the decision is a signal that regulators are catching up with how people actually use AI today — not just as a chat interface, but as a gateway to information, research, and decision-making.

What the VLOSE Label Actually Means

The DSA uses user thresholds to determine regulatory intensity. Any platform with more than 45 million average monthly users in the EU falls into the “very large” category and faces a stricter set of obligations. OpenAI reported approximately 159.1 million average monthly recipients for ChatGPT Search globally, well above the threshold.

The Commission described ChatGPT as a “hybrid service” — part chatbot, part search engine. Because it responds to user queries by searching the web and returning synthesised answers, it functions like a search engine in practice. That reasoning is hard to argue with. Most users who ask ChatGPT about a current event or a market price are doing something functionally identical to a Google search.

Reddit and Roblox were also designated at the same time as Very Large Online Platforms under a parallel category.

What OpenAI Now Has to Do

The designation triggers a set of compliance requirements that OpenAI has until January 2027 to meet. These include:

• Annual systemic risk assessments covering illegal content, protection of minors, user wellbeing, fundamental rights, electoral processes, and public security
• Independent audits of how its systems assess and mitigate those risks
• Data sharing with regulators and vetted researchers who want to study how the platform operates
• Transparency reporting on algorithmic systems and how they influence what users see

If OpenAI fails to comply, it faces fines of up to 6% of its global annual turnover. For a company that raised at a multi-hundred-billion-dollar valuation and is spending aggressively on infrastructure, that is a meaningful number.

The catch for OpenAI is that it now faces dual regulatory pressure in Europe. ChatGPT is subject to both the AI Act (which covers the underlying foundation models) and the DSA (which now governs the search-facing product). Most competitors only deal with one of these frameworks. OpenAI has to build compliance processes for both.

Why This Is Bigger Than It Looks

This decision matters beyond OpenAI’s legal team. It represents a regulatory philosophy that is spreading: AI tools that function like infrastructure — search, email, financial advice, healthcare information — should be held to the same standards as the infrastructure they are replacing.

That is a reasonable position. If millions of EU citizens are getting their news, health information, or business research from ChatGPT rather than a search engine, the platform they are using should be audited for accuracy, safety, and bias with the same rigour applied to traditional search.

For enterprise AI buyers, the decision is actually a net positive over the medium term. Platforms under DSA scrutiny will publish transparency reports, undergo independent audits, and share data with researchers. That means more accountability, better documentation of risks, and more pressure on providers to maintain the quality of their outputs.

What This Means for Business

If you are deploying ChatGPT or similar AI tools inside your business, here is what to watch:

Feature changes are possible. OpenAI may adjust how ChatGPT Search works in the EU to reduce regulatory risk. That could affect how well it retrieves current information or how it surfaces sources.

Transparency is coming either way. Whether you are in the EU or not, the audit reports and risk assessments that OpenAI will have to publish are going to contain useful intelligence about how the platform works. Smart enterprises will read them.

Regulatory pressure on AI tools is global, not just European. The EU tends to set frameworks that other jurisdictions adopt over time. If you are building processes around AI tools right now, assume the compliance bar will rise.

Your AI vendor’s compliance posture matters. As AI tools face more regulation, choosing providers who take compliance seriously becomes a real business decision, not just a procurement checkbox.

The EU’s classification of ChatGPT as a search engine is not a ban, a restriction, or an obstacle to AI adoption. It is a recognition that AI has become consequential enough to govern. That is, broadly, where things were always heading.

For any business that takes AI seriously, understanding where that governance is headed is part of using AI well.

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Enterprise DNA works with business teams to build AI-powered operations that are practical, measurable, and built to last. If you want to understand how AI regulation affects your deployment plans, book a strategy session.