ChatGPT maker OpenAI testing SearchGPT: 4 key things to know about the AI-powered search engine set to take on Google

OpenAI is testing an artificial intelligence-powered search engine that can access information from across the internet in real time. The prominent AI startup revealed the new prototype, SearchGPT, in a blog post earlier this week. OpenAI plans to integrate its new search engine technology with its existing online chatbot, ChatGPT. In a blog post, Microsoft-backed OpenAI said that the company plans to integrate the best features from the search tool into ChatGPT in the future.Here are the key things to know about SearchGPT.

SearchGPT in testing phase right now

The company said it was testing the technology with a small group of users as well as online publishers who partnered with OpenAI to help build the search engine.

What OpenAI said about SearchGPT

“Getting answers on the web can take a lot of effort, often requiring multiple attempts to get relevant results,” the company said in its blog post. “We believe that by enhancing the conversational capabilities of our models with real-time information from the web, finding what you’re looking for can be faster and easier,” it added. Users will be able to interact with SearchGPT through conversational queries, and can ask follow-up questions as they might if speaking to a person, OpenAI said.

OpenAI to take on Microsoft Bing and Perplexity, along with Google

Other than the search giant Google, SearchGPT launch, announced earlier this week, places the AI giant in competition with its largest backer Microsoft’s Bing search and emerging services such as Perplexity — a search-focused AI chatbot firm backed by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and semiconductor giant Nvidia. According to web analytics firm Statcounter, Google dominates the search engine market with a 91.1% share as of June 2024.

SearchGPT may look like Google Overview

Google recently added AI-generated query result summaries — referred to as “Overviews” — to its search engine. This new feature offers written text at the top of results for Google searches, ahead of the traditional links to websites, which summarizes information that the engine believes answers the user’s search query. The description shared by OPenAI of SearchGPT appears similar to Google’s Overviews.
(With agency inputs)