OpenAI has announced its highly anticipated entry into the search market with the launch of SearchGPT, an AI-powered search engine with real-time access to information on the internet.
According to the company:
‘Getting answers on the web can take a lot of effort, often requiring multiple attempts to get relevant results. We believe that by enhancing the conversational capabilities of our models with real-time information from the web, finding what you’re looking for can be faster and easier.’
How does it work?
The SearchGPT homepage has a large text box that asks the user “What are you looking for?” But instead of merely returning a plain list of links, SearchGPT tries to organize and understand them. In one example from OpenAI, the search engine summarizes its findings about music festivals and then presents short descriptions of the events followed by attribution links to authors.
After the results appears, you can ask follow-up questions like you would in a conversation with a person, with the shared context building with each query.
Is SearchGPT available yet?
Currently, SearchGPT is available as a prototype in limited release, available only to 10,000 test users. It works works with third-party partners and uses direct content channels to generate search results.
The Sam Altman-led company has confirmed that OpenAI plans to eventually integrate it directly into ChatGPT. However, if you want to test out the feature, you can visit chatgpt.com/search and join a waitlist.
Is it a threat to Google?
While SearchGPT has only just been launched, it’s the start of what may become a credible threat to Google’s own artificial intelligence initiative, where the tech giant has baked AI features into its search engine. Now, with a viable alternative from the makers of ChatGPT, that dominance over search options may be challenged in the future.
SearchGPT also presents a threat to the startup Perplexity, which has termed itself an AI “answer” engine.
