ChatGPT Search’s EU user base has surged over the last six months, with more than 41 million people now using the feature every month.

Figures published by OpenAI Ireland Limited show that the ChatGPT Search user base has risen by more than 250% since October, when it counted just over 11 million active monthly users.

The data has been revealed as part of the tech firm’s obligations under Article 24(2) of the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA), which requires platforms to publish user numbers every six months to increase transparency for both the public and regulators looking to streamline data protection rules across the European Union’s member states.

With the increase in its user base, ChatGPT Search is inching closer to being labelled a Very Large Online Platform (VLOP) under DSA rules, a classification given to platforms and search engines with more than 45 million average monthly users in across the EU.

Once designated a VLOP, ChatGPT Search will be forced to comply with specific rules that tackle risks the European Commission argues large online services pose to European citizens, especially in regard to illegal content, as well as their impact on fundamental rights, public security, and wellbeing.

Any platforms that don’t bend to these rules face not only a fine, which could reach 6% of their global turnover, but also risk being suspended in the EU.

Despite the jump in its user base and some evidence that more people are ditching traditional search engines in favour of AI tools, ChatGPT’s search function is not overtaking the market anytime soon.

Last year, a DMEXCO survey found that while an increasing number of Europeans are using AI-based chatbots when searching for information online, traditional search engines still hold a dominant position in the market, with 69% of people predominantly using them for searches.

When searching online for business purposes, more than 60% said that they always use traditional search engines, compared to 2.5% who said they preferred to use AI chatbots, and just 0.7% who reported always using AI chatbots.

Crunching the numbers, one online marketing analyst looked at Google’s daily interactions and discovered that the tech giant processed around twenty-three billion searches every day, compared to ChatGPT’s ten billion conversations, equating to around 2,300 Google searches for every ChatGPT conversation, which could include searches. 

Those figures are perhaps unsurprising given that ‘searchbots’ are still in relative infancy compared to behemoths like Google, but their trajectory has exploded in recent months.

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A report last week from Opollo found that ChatGPT’s search market share has risen by 740% in the past twelve months, going from holding just 0.25% of the global search market in early 2024, to 2.1% of total search traffic in 2025.

Added to that, figures from venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz show that global user numbers for ChatGPT have doubled twice in the last two years, first rising from 100 million weekly active users in November 2023 to 200 million in August 2024, before reaching 400 million weekly users just six months later, in February 2025.

The influx of users and search prompts is coming with considerable cost for OpenAI, however, with CEO Sam Altman admitting with a post on X that the company loses ‘tens of millions of dollars’ on electricity costs through users saying ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ in their prompts, but hauntingly added that this money was well spent, saying ‘you never know’.