Key point. ChatGPT-User is OpenAI's AI user fetcher. It fetches a page when a person asks the assistant to look at it; it is not an automatic crawler. robots.txt may not apply to it, because a person triggers the request.
ChatGPT-User at a glance
These are the facts our registry holds for ChatGPT-User, checked against OpenAI's documentation on October 14, 2026.
| Vendor | OpenAI |
| Used by | ChatGPT search |
| Purpose | AI user fetch |
| Type | User agent |
| Follows robots.txt | Not always; source: vendor's documentation, as recorded in our AI crawler check |
| Vendor documentation | OpenAI crawler page, checked October 14, 2026 |
| Published IP ranges | openai.com/chatgpt-user.json |
What is ChatGPT-User?
ChatGPT-User is OpenAI's AI user fetcher. It fetches a page when a person asks the assistant to look at it; it is not an automatic crawler. Our registry notes: OpenAI says ChatGPT-User is triggered by a user, and robots.txt rules may not apply to it.
In OpenAI's own words (OpenAI's crawler documentation, read October 14, 2026):
- “ChatGPT-User is not used for crawling the web in an automatic fashion.”
- “ChatGPT-User is not used to determine whether content may appear in Search.”
OpenAI uses other names for other jobs: OAI-SearchBot (AI search); GPTBot (AI training); OAI-AdsBot (other). Each takes its own robots.txt group.
Does ChatGPT-User follow robots.txt?
Not always, because a person triggers each request: Our registry notes: OpenAI says ChatGPT-User is triggered by a user, and robots.txt rules may not apply to it.
What OpenAI says (OpenAI's crawler documentation, read October 14, 2026):
- “Because these actions are initiated by a user, robots.txt rules may not apply.”
A robots.txt rule records your request. It does not prove a crawler honours it, and firewall or CDN bot settings can refuse a crawler that robots.txt allows, so check those too.
How do I block ChatGPT-User in robots.txt?
Add a group that names ChatGPT-User and disallows the whole site:
User-agent: ChatGPT-User
Disallow: /To keep it out of one folder only, disallow that path instead, for example Disallow: /private/.
robots.txt may not stop it. robots.txt may not apply to it, because a person triggers the request. If you must keep it out, the block has to happen in your firewall or CDN, not only in robots.txt.
How do I allow ChatGPT-User?
ChatGPT-User is allowed by default: if no group names it and no User-agent: * rule blocks it, it may read every page. A crawler obeys the most specific group that names it and falls back to User-agent: * only when no group names it (RFC 9309), so if a catch-all rule blocks crawlers, add a group for it:
User-agent: ChatGPT-User
Allow: /How can I tell if a request really comes from ChatGPT-User?
Match the request's IP address against OpenAI's published list, because user agents can be faked: https://openai.com/chatgpt-user.json.
How often do startup websites block ChatGPT-User?
Our AI Crawler Access Report read the robots.txt files of 600 sampled startup websites on October 7, 2026. This is its row for ChatGPT-User, across the 569 sites whose answer it could read:
| Crawler | Type | Blocked on at least one path | Blocked on all six paths | Named in the file |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ChatGPT-User | AI user fetch | 3 of 569 sites (0.5%; 95% interval 0.2% to 1.5%) | 1 of 569 sites (0.2%; 95% interval 0.0% to 1.0%) | 93 of 569 sites (16%; 95% interval 14% to 20%) |
“Blocked” means the file disallows the crawler on at least one of six common paths (/, /pricing, /blog/, /docs/, /about, /product).
The report's headline figure, for the three AI search crawlers it tracked: “3 of 569 startup websites (0.5%; 95% interval 0.2% to 1.5%) block at least one AI search crawler (Elementera AI Crawler Access Report, October 2026).”
The figures describe that sample of Y Combinator-backed software companies on the day we fetched it. The method, the intervals and the full table are in the AI Crawler Access Report.
What the AI Crawler Access Report adds about ChatGPT-User:
5 of 569 sites (0.9%; 95% interval 0.4% to 2.0%) block at least one of the fetchers that visit a page when a person asks an assistant to read it (ChatGPT-User, Claude-User, Perplexity-User, Meta-ExternalFetcher).
How do I check whether my robots.txt blocks ChatGPT-User?
Paste your robots.txt into our free checker and it shows, crawler by crawler, whether ChatGPT-User may read the path you choose. Nothing you paste leaves the page.