Adds OpenAI comment in paragraph 3

April 10 (Reuters) - OpenAI and its chatbot ChatGPT are set to be classified as very large search engines and fall under the European Union's Digital Services Act (DSA), meaning they face tighter regulation, Germany's Handelsblatt newspaper said on Friday, citing sources.

Handelsblatt said OpenAI declined to comment on the matter when contacted while a spokesperson for the EU Commission told Handelsblatt that the available user data was being reviewed.

OpenAI said it had published the average number of monthly active recipients for ChatGPT search in line with existing obligations, adding this referred to users in the EU over the past six months.