On 31 August 2026, something happened that almost nobody noticed. They should have.
That day, the European Commission officially designated ChatGPT a very large online search engine — on par with Google and Bing. Not a chatbot, not a toy, not a "neural network for pictures." A search engine. The decision was published in the official press release IP/26/1772.
Let me translate that into plain language: the thing you used as a "smart conversation partner" is now legally a search engine. With a billion active users a week.
Now here's the question. Where do your clients look when they're deciding whom to hire?
The answer seems obvious — Google. It's always been that way: someone googles "lawyer nearby," "good clinic," "contractor for renovations," opens websites, compares, calls.
But here's the counterpunch: people have stopped googling. They ask the neural network. Not "where to find," but "whom to choose." A lawyer. A clinic. A contractor. And the neural network recommends — the ones it knows.
Picture an ordinary evening. Someone needs a lawyer — a dispute with a developer. A year ago, they would have opened Google, typed in "real estate lawyer," opened ten tabs, and spent half an hour comparing websites. Today, they type into ChatGPT: "Recommend a good lawyer for disputes with developers in my city." And they get three names. With explanations of why these three. Case closed in two minutes — without a single tab open.
A search engine is not a website. It's the place where the decision gets made. That place used to be called Google. Now it has a competitor — officially recognized by the European Commission itself.
Some numbers, so you can feel the scale. ChatGPT's search function is used by 159.1 million people a month in the EU — and that figure is what triggered the decision: the threshold for the status is 45 million. On 8 September 2026, OpenAI confirmed: over a billion weekly active users across the company's products. And on 29 September at DevDay, OpenAI itself put the number at 1.2 billion weekly ChatGPT users. From January 2027, ChatGPT falls under the strictest obligations of the European Digital Services Act — the same ones that apply to very large platforms.
By the way, about the decision itself. The very large search engine designation is not an honorary certificate. Under European law, it carries serious obligations: systemic risk assessments, independent audits, data access for vetted researchers, advertising transparency. OpenAI must meet them by January 2027. In plain language: Europe officially treats ChatGPT as infrastructure that society depends on. Like Google and Bing.
You might be thinking: "My clients don't use ChatGPT." Look at the numbers again: a billion people a week. That's no longer "tech-savvy youth" — those are your clients: business owners, doctors, lawyers who pick a contractor in the evening. The question isn't whether they use the neural network. It's what it answers when they ask about your niche.
Right now, the winners are the ones the neural network already knows: experts with media mentions, with reviews, with content that people link to. Not because they "optimized for AI" — that kind of optimization barely exists yet. But because they've spent years building visibility in the sources that both people and machines trust.
What does this mean for you in practice? When someone asks the neural network "recommend a good lawyer," it doesn't google on their behalf. It answers from what it knows: from the texts it was trained on, from mentions online, from sources it trusts. If there's nothing about you there — you don't exist. Not "you're on page two of the results." You're simply not part of the conversation.
Think about how this changes the rules. For twenty years, businesses fought for a spot in the search results: SEO, advertising, rankings. All of that worked while the decision was made by a human scrolling through a list of links. Now the list is compiled by a neural network — and it doesn't scroll. It answers. You can't buy your way into its answer with money per click. The ones who get in are those known and trusted by the sources it relies on: media mentions, reviews, expert content, a living footprint online.
One question remains: when your potential client asks the neural network whom to choose — does it name you, or your competitor?
The nastiest thing about this story is invisibility. On Google, at least you could see you were on page five, and you knew what to do. Here, you don't know whether the neural network recommends you until a client tells you themselves: "ChatGPT recommended you." Or until they choose a competitor — which you'll be the last to find out.
And this is no longer a prediction about the future. This is 31 August 2026, an official European Commission document. Search has changed — the only question is whether you've changed with it.
The good news: visibility in the neural network can be checked — and influenced. It's not magic and not "hacking the algorithm," but systematic work with mentions, sources, and trust. The bad news: the window when this was easy is closing before your eyes. While some are thinking "AI search is about the future," others are already being recommended. Every month of inaction means clients who asked the neural network and went to a competitor.
On building AI workflows in business systematically — no magic, no “hacks”: “Not one AI agent but a team: content factory for experts”.
Want to know if the neural network sees you? Write "ПОИСК" — I'll show you how to check your visibility in ChatGPT.
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*Sources: official European Commission press release IP/26/1772 "Commission designates ChatGPT, Reddit, Roblox under Digital Services Act", Brussels, 31 August 2026: https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_26_1772; OpenAI, "The Work Now Within Reach", 8 September 2026: https://openai.com/index/the-work-now-within-reach/; OpenAI data announced at DevDay on 29 September 2026.*