OpenAI rolls out ChatGPT-powered internet search to all users, challenging Google’s dominance

SINGAPORE: On Monday, OpenAI announced that it is making its ChatGPT-powered internet search available to all users, challenging Google’s dominance in the search engine market.

The feature had been available only to paying subscribers since October, but it is now accessible to anyone logged into ChatGPT, including free users, as reported by The Business Times.

This new update adds real-time search capabilities to ChatGPT, providing quick answers and links to relevant web sources.

Previously, users had to rely on traditional search engines for up-to-date information, but now ChatGPT can pull data directly from the web for more current responses.

Kevin Weil, OpenAI’s chief product officer, shared the news in a video posted on YouTube, explaining that the feature would be available to users globally across all platforms where ChatGPT is used. He said, “We’re bringing search to all logged-in free users of ChatGPT.”

The interface for the new search feature looks similar to search results provided by Google but without the ads. It also resembles Perplexity, an AI-powered search engine which provides conversational answers along with the sources it references.

Adam Fry, the ChatGPT Search product lead, added that this update will make the chatbot’s responses more accurate and timely.

“We’re really just making the ChatGPT experience that you know better with up-to-date information from the web,” he said. “We’re rolling this out to hundreds of millions of users, starting today,” he added.

Instead of creating a separate product, OpenAI has integrated search directly into ChatGPT. Users can turn the feature on by default or activate it manually using a web search icon.

Before this update, chatbots like ChatGPT and Anthropic’s Claude were limited by time cutoffs, meaning their responses were not up-to-date.

Meanwhile, platforms like Google and Microsoft combine AI-generated answers with live web search results, providing more up-to-date information.

The addition of real-time search to ChatGPT may raise new questions about OpenAI’s ties to Microsoft, a key investor aiming to grow its Bing search engine against Google.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has set the company on a path to becoming an internet powerhouse. The company recently reached a valuation of US$157 billion in a funding round with investments from Microsoft, SoftBank, and Nvidia. 

However, enticing more users with search capabilities will also increase the company’s already enormous computing needs and costs. /TISG

Read also: Apple brings ChatGPT to its iPhone models, iPads, and Macs this holiday season

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