Yesterday, OpenAI revealed its latest branch of AI experimentation by unveiling SearchGPT — a GPT-4o-powered search tool that uses real-time information from the web to answer search queries with fast, clear, and relevant sources of information.
Google can let out a sigh of relief, at least for now. SearchGPT is a temporary prototype, designed by OpenAI to identify how users interact and use the tool to extract its best features and add them to the ever-growing skillset of its popular ChatGPT LLM (Large Language Model).
Those interested in testing the AI-powered Google Search alternative can sign up to the waitlist at OpenAI.com,
SearchGPT: AI-powered web search sees ChatGPT take on Google
A post to the OpenAI website details SearchGPT in full, revealing its search capabilities as an alternative to your everyday Googling.
OpenAI laments the frustrations of finding crucial information on the web in a speedy manner, highlighting the need sometimes to take multiple stabs at a query before you find what you're looking for.
Seeking to take some of the frustration out of searching, the new SearchGPT tool offers a conversational flow to finding the information you want. OpenAI's natural language-focused method of searching leads to a more, "Ask and refine" approach to finding information online.
This method allows users to pose an initial question to SearchGPT before allowing them the option to pose follow-up queries to fine-tune results and gain further insights.
The result is a search engine that can return more specific answers to user questions, avoiding the need to click through page after page of search results as you seek out sites that have the information you're looking for.
While not mentioned in the announcement post, SearchGPT will likely feature Microsoft Bing as the provider for its real-time search results.
Bing has been the default search engine of ChatGPT since May 2023, continuing a profitable collaboration with Microsoft which has benefited from implementing OpenAI's technology to power services like Microsoft Copilot and the image generation capabilities of Microsoft Designer.
Avoiding previous pitfalls
With OpenAI bringing its SearchGPT tool into limited testing, they'll be sure to want to avoid Google's initial efforts to merge AI with Search results.
Google's new Search Generative Experience (SGE) launched earlier this year, providing AI summaries and overviews for search results. While OpenAI's method leans entirely into the AI-filtered results, Google offered more of a hybrid solution. AI-generated summaries would feature at the top of pages, with more traditional Search results below.
Sadly for Google, its new Search experience immediately ran into issues as the once trusty Google Search Engine began spouting an incredible number of inaccuracies with its Gemini AI recommending that users add rocks and glue to recipes and make dangerous combinations of chemicals to clean their washing machines.
Thankfully for OpenAI, ChatGPT has been able to provide limited web searches and summaries for some time, giving ChatGPT Plus subscribers access to live, real-time information from around the web via Bing. So far, the feature has managed to avoid any high-profile mishaps, though how SearchGPT handles a much more in-depth probing of the internet remains to be seen.
