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OpenAI is launching a ChatGPT-powered search engine that affects the flow of internet traffic seeking news, sports scores and other timely information.
The latest ChatGPT’s search feature will become a direct competitor to other search engines like Google, Microsoft’s Bing and Perplexity.
In a major move, OpenAI has launched a search feature in its chatbot ChatGPT to offer the latest news, sports scores, weather conditions, stock prices, and more. Following the move, Google parent Alphabet’s shares declined nearly two per cent, while the Microsoft stock tumbled over 6 per cent.
Alphabet’s shares fell 1.98 per cent to $172.65 on Thursday, while Microsoft’s scrips declined 6.05 per cent to $406.35 apiece on the Nasdaq.
The investors are concerned that the latest ChatGPT’s search feature will become a direct competitor to other search engines like Google, Microsoft’s Bing, and Perplexity.
What is OpenAI Search Engine?
OpenAI is launching a ChatGPT-powered search engine that could put the artificial intelligence company in direct competition with Google and affect the flow of internet traffic seeking news, sports scores and other timely information.
On October 31, San Francisco-based OpenAI said it is releasing a search feature to paid users of ChatGPT but will eventually expand it to all ChatGPT users. OpenAI began beta-testing the search engine, called SearchGPT, in July.
In a blogpost, OpenAI said its new search engine was built with help from news partners, which include The Associated Press and News Corp. It will include links to sources, such as news and blog posts.
Chats now include links to sources like articles or blog posts, which users can access by clicking the “Sources” button below the response to open a sidebar. OpenAI said it collaborated with its news partners, including The Associated Press, Reuters, Axel Springer, Condé Nast, Hearst, Dotdash Meredith, the Financial Times, News Corp., Le Monde, The Atlantic, Time and Vox Media.
OpenAI Search Engine: Why Are Google, Microsoft Investors Concerned?
The release could have implications for Google as the dominant search engine. Since the launch of ChatGPT in November 2022, Alphabet investors have been concerned that OpenAI could take market share from Google in search by giving consumers new ways to seek information online.
The move also positions OpenAI as more of a competitor to Microsoft and its businesses. Microsoft has invested close to $14 billion in OpenAI, yet OpenAI’s products directly compete with Microsoft’s AI and search tools, such as Copilot and Bing.
AMA Thursday, OpenAI’s engineering VP, Srinivas Narayanan, answered a user question about whether ChatGPT search used Bing as the search engine behind the scenes, writing, “We use a set of services and Bing is an important one.”
OpenAI says users can “search in a more natural, intuitive way” and ask follow-up questions “just like you would in a conversation.” The search model is a fine-tuned version of OpenAI’s most powerful AI model yet, GPT-4o, and is fueled in part by third-party search providers and content provided by news industry partners.
ChatGPT Search Engine: Available for Free In ‘Coming Months’
All ChatGPT Plus and Team users, as well as members of SearchGPT’s waitlist, can access ChatGPT search starting Thursday, according to an OpenAI blog post. ChatGPT Enterprise and Edu users will get access in the next few weeks, and the product will roll out to users of ChatGPT’s free version “over the coming months”, as per OpenAI.
ChatGPT Search Engine: How Was it Developed?
Google upended its search engine in May with AI-generated written summaries now frequently appearing at the top of search results. The summaries aim to quickly answer a user’s search query so that they don’t necessarily need to click a link and visit another website for more information.
Google’s makeover came after a year of testing with a small group of users but usage still resulted in falsehoods showing the risks of ceding the search for information to AI chatbots prone to making errors known as hallucinations.
A pivot by AI companies to have their chatbots deliver news gathered by professional journalists has alarmed some news media organizations. The New York Times is among several news outlets that have sued OpenAI and its business partner Microsoft for copyright infringement. Wall Street Journal and New York Post publisher News Corp sued another AI search engine, Perplexity, earlier in October.
OpenAI Business, Funding
OpenAI closed its latest funding round earlier this month at a valuation of $157 billion, including the $6.6 billion the company raised from an extensive roster of investment firms and Big Tech companies. It also received a $4 billion revolving line of credit, bringing its total liquidity to more than $10 billion. OpenAI expects about $5 billion in losses on $3.7 billion in revenue this year, CNBC confirmed in September with a person familiar with the situation.
OpenAI has in recent months experienced some controversy around its upcoming transition to a for-profit structure, as well as a string of executive departures. Jan Leike, a former safety team leader at the company, wrote on X while resigning that “safety culture and processes have taken a backseat to shiny products” at the company.
(With Inputs from Agencies)