OpenAI is making headlines again, with its latest prototype, SearchGPT, an AI-powered search engine that could stand dominance in the search engine market, This gives consumers a better way to search the web for information by combining real-time online data with generative artificial intelligence.
A New Contender in Search
As OpenAI is testing a new search engine that generates results through generative artificial intelligence there could be a serious threat to Google’s dominance in the internet search business.
Before a possible larger rollout, SearchGPT will be made available to a limited number of publishers and users at launch.
SearchGPT uses OpenAI GPT-4 technology, which provides concise conversational responses to user questions. As with ChatGPT, you can ask questions in normal language and get straight replies with links to the sources.
Compared to typical search engines, SearchGPT is designed to make it easier and more comfortable for users to find information. To improve user experience, the sidebar provides more links relevant to the search query.
With SearchGPT’s launch, OpenAI now faces off against other search engines, particularly Google, which now controls nearly 90% of the market for online searches.
In response, Google has begun to include AI-generated summaries—known as AI Overviews—in its search results. Although there were some accuracy problems at first, Google has kept improving the feature.
On the other hand, Microsoft has improved Bing’s search engine by incorporating OpenAI’s technology into Bing and launching Bing Generative Search lately.
What makes SearchGPT unique is that it provides real-time information from the web, which addresses the significant limitations of most AI models such as ChatGPT, which rely on outdated data. This makes Open AI search GPT a more reliable source of information.
How SearchGPT appears.
- It looks familiar to GPT-4o.
- “faster and easier” Experience
- “What are you searching for?” appears in a search field.
- The response from SearchGPT will then show sources below the response and include links to other sources within the text response.
- There will be more results shown in a sidebar.
Here is an example, music festivals in Boone, NC in August 2024]:
Partnering with publishers and creators
One of the things that directs SearchGPT’s development from OpenAI is collaboration with publishers. As a result of this collaboration, content creators now ensure that sources are cited and linked in search results.
Google’s AI summary deals with the concern that AI-generated content could negatively impact website traffic.
OpenAI has also offered publishers tools to control how their content appears in SearchGPT’s results. It is important to note that the publishers can choose not to let OpenAI train on the content but display it in the search results.
The goal of this approach is to maintain a balance between innovation and respect for content creators’ rights.
SearchGPT’s launch at this moment when OpenAI confronts complex legal issues. The New York Times has accused the company of using its material to train AI models, and the two are currently engaged in a legal dispute.
OpenAI has responded to these accusations by defending itself and asserting that it respects the rights of publishers and cites its sources as needed.
“Responses have clean, inline, named link references so users can identify the source of information and can extend the search with more results in a right sidebar with links to other sources. ”
Looking Ahead
Initially, SearchGPT is free and the search results are ad-free. However because AI training and inference may be expensive, OpenAI will need to figure out monetization.
Specifically, OpenAI is continuously improving SearchGPT and the search engine market may be in for a large-scale change. Interfacing SearchGPT, AI’s ability to hold conversations along with real-time web data could transform the way users look for information on the web posing a threat to companies like Google, Bing among others.
According to Open AI’s blog post:
“It aims to help users in reaching out to the publishers by referencing and linking them in the search results section.”
Conclusion
SearchGPT is a new search engine that uses generative AI being tested by Open AI to challenge Google’s dominance in online search. Using real-time web data and GPT-4 models, SearchGPT is introduced as a temporary prototype to 10,000 test users. It provides conversational responses along with connections to relevant sources.
Eventually, OpenAI intends to incorporate these search functions into ChatGPT instead of providing a separate solution. SearchGPT aims to go against Google Bing and other big search engines by collaborating with third-party partners and direct content feeds.
If SearchGPT is successful, it may indicate a new era of AI-driven search, one in which finding information on the internet is faster, easier to use, and more thoroughly integrated with the latest web data.
