April 22, 2011 - According to a report filed by OpenAI Ireland Ltd. ChatGPT Search function in the last six monthsEuropean UnionChatGPT Search has shown significant growth in the number of active users. For the six-month period ended March 31, 2025, ChatGPT Search had an average of approximately 41.3 million monthly active users, compared to approximately 11.2 million for the six-month period ended October 31, 2024, a significant increase.
1AI understands that OpenAI regularly publishes data about ChatGPT Search, which is required to comply with the European Union's Digital Services Act (DSA). The DSA imposes a number of requirements on theEuropeNational online services are regulated in a number of ways, with "monthly active users" defined as those who have accessed information (e.g. viewed or listened) or provided information through the interface of an online platform at least once in a given period of time.
Under the DSA.When an online platform or search engine has more than 45 million average monthly active users, these platforms, which are defined as "mega", need to fulfill a number of additional requirements. For example, they must allow users to opt out of recommender systems and user profiling, share certain data with researchers and regulators, and be subject to external audits. Current trends in ChatGPT Search's user growth suggest that it may soon meet this threshold and thus be subject to the more stringent regulatory requirements described above.
The penalties faced by online platforms that fail to comply with DSA regulations are quite severe.Non-compliant platforms may be fined up to 6% of their global turnoverA sustained refusal to comply could also lead to a temporary suspension of its operations within the EU.
Despite regulatory pressure, ChatGPT Search has gained a share of the search engine market since its launch last year. According to a survey conducted last September, 8% of respondents said they would choose ChatGPT over Google as their primary search engine. However, Google remains the dominant online search tool by far. It is estimated that Google handles 373 times more searches than ChatGPT.
However, researchers have also pointed out that ChatGPT Search, as well as other AI-powered search engines, have some problems with reliability. One study showed that ChatGPT misidentified 67% results when searching for articles. Another study revealed problems with ChatGPT's accuracy when dealing with news content, including those from publishers that have licensing agreements with OpenAI.