OpenAI could have plans to enter the search business – difficult not only upstarts like Perplexity, but additionally Google and Bing.
The company unveiled on Thursday SearchGPTa search function designed to offer “timely answers” to questions based on web sources.
In terms of user interface, SearchGPT is just not far faraway from OpenAI's chatbot platform ChatGPT. You enter a question and SearchGPT returns information and photos from the net, in addition to links to relevant sources. Then, a sidebar allows you to ask more questions or explore additional, related searches.
Some searches take your location into consideration. In a Support DocumentOpenAI writes that SearchGPT “collects and shares general location information with third-party search providers” to enhance the accuracy of results (for instance, by showing an inventory of nearby restaurants or the weather forecast). SearchGPT also allows users to share more precise location information via a toggle within the settings menu.
Based on OpenAI models (specifically GPT-3.5, GPT-4 and GPT-4o), SearchGPT – which OpenAI describes as a prototype – launches today to “a small group” of users and publishers. (There is a waiting list Here.) OpenAI states that it plans to integrate some features of SearchGPT into ChatGPT in the long run.
“Finding answers on the internet could be very laborious and infrequently requires multiple attempts to acquire relevant results,” OpenAI writes in a blog entry“We imagine that by extending the conversational capabilities of our models with real-time information from the Internet, you’ll find what you're on the lookout for faster and easier.”
There have long been rumors that OpenAI is keen on launching some sort of Google killer. The information reported in February that a product – or no less than a pilot project – was within the works. But the launch of SearchGPT comes at an inopportune time: AI-powered search tools are rightly under fire for plagiarism, inaccuracies and content cannibalization.
Google's version of AI-powered search, AI Overviews, infamously suggested smearing glue on a pizza. The browser company's Arc Search told a reporter that cut-off toes will grow back. The AI search engine Genspark once readily really helpful weapons that might kill someone. And Perplexity rip off news articles by other media outlets, including CNBC, Bloomberg and Forbes, without citing sources.
AI-generated overviews threaten to cannibalize traffic on the web sites they source their information from. In fact, that is already happening. One study found that AI overviews negatively impact about 25% of publisher traffic resulting from the lower emphasis on article links.
OpenAI is taking a cue from Perplexity's ongoing apology tour and positioning SearchGPT as a more responsible, measured deployment.
OpenAI says SearchGPT does a superb job of citing and referencing publishers in search queries, using “clear, inline, and named sources.” It also says the corporate works with publishers to shape the experience and supply website owners with a option to manage how their content appears in search results.
“Importantly, SearchGPT is about search and has nothing to do with training OpenAI's core generative AI models. Websites can appear in search results even in the event that they select not to coach generative AI,” OpenAI clarifies within the blog post. “We are committed to a thriving ecosystem of publishers and developers.”
It is a bit harsh to take an organization that once scraped tens of millions of YouTube transcripts without permission to coach its models on their word. But we’ll see how the SearchGPT saga unfolds.
