OpenAI just announced SearchGPT, a promising AI search engine with real-time access to information from all over the Internet. With SearchGPT, users not only get a simple list of links but also experience search results that are clearly organized and summarized. For example, when searching for information about music festivals, SearchGPT will provide brief summaries and descriptions of the events, with links to the source of the information. Similarly, when searching for how to grow tomatoes, this tool explains when to plant and categorizes different tomato varieties.
Currently, SearchGPT is still in testing with a limit of the first 10.000 people. However, OpenAI plans to integrate this search feature directly into ChatGPT in the future. The launch of SearchGPT marks an important step forward in competing with Google, especially at a time when Google has been working to integrate AI features into its search engine to retain users.
OpenAI is also facing competition from Perplexity, a startup that provides AI search solutions. Perplexity recently came under fire for its AI summarizing feature, which publishers said copied their content. In response, OpenAI emphasized that SearchGPT was developed in collaboration with many news partners, including The Wall Street Journal, The Associated Press, and Vox Media, to ensure clear citations and links and to allow publishers to manage how they appear in OpenAI search features.
While SearchGPT is currently free for test users and has no ads, OpenAI will soon have to find a way to monetize the service to meet the rising costs of AI training and inference. With strong development plans, SearchGPT will likely be a serious threat to Google and create a major change in the way we search for information online.
