OpenAI is adding a new set of search features to its flagship product ChatGPT, escalating the artificial intelligence startup’s challenge to Alphabet Inc.’s Google.
The option, called ChatGPT Search, will let the chatbot’s users search for timely information much as they would on the web and get responses with in-line attribution to news publishers and other data sources, OpenAI said Thursday. The company rolled out a prototype of the product in July called SearchGPT, which was separate from its ChatGPT app and only available to a limited number of users.
The new search capabilities, which use OpenAI’s 4o model, will go live beginning with paid ChatGPT Plus and Team users on Thursday for mobile and web. OpenAI’s enterprise and educational customers will be able to get access to the features in the coming weeks and free users sometime in the coming months.
Following the viral success of ChatGPT in late 2022, tech companies raced to incorporate generative AI into a long list of services, including online search. OpenAI-backer Microsoft Corp. and Google have overhauled their search products to include more conversational AI features. Perplexity, a rival AI search startup, is now in early talks to raise funding at a $9 billion valuation, Bloomberg previously reported. With ChatGPT Search, OpenAI is poised to bring similar AI search functionality to the 250 million people who use the chatbot each week.
Shares of Alphabet were down more than 1% Thursday following the news.
“People want answers when they search for things, and getting an answer is difficult on the internet right now. It takes multiple searches and you have to go through a bunch of links,” Varun Shetty, head of media partnerships at OpenAI, said in an interview with Bloomberg News. “We think that being able to ask in a conversational way with all of that relevant context and high-quality sources on the other side just makes this a better experience.”
In a demo ahead of the release, OpenAI’s team used the feature to ask ChatGPT about weekend events in San Francisco. The app showed a summary list of activities pulled from local news websites. For a follow-up question about looking for restaurants, ChatGPT showed a map listing local eateries. While ChatGPT has previously included some citations in its responses, the new search feature shows summaries of sources and preview images more prominently.
OpenAI has laid the groundwork for its search offering through a growing number of licensing deals with publishers, including News Corp., Axel Springer SE, Time magazine as well as European media companies such as Le Monde. The partnerships allow OpenAI to include more authoritative, up-to-date information within its products. OpenAI said it incorporated feedback from publisher partners for ChatGPT Search about how the chatbot decides which articles are most relevant as well as determining the summary length and quotations for articles.
“We are convinced that AI search will be, in a near future and for the next generations, a primary way to access information, and partnering with OpenAI positions Le Monde at the forefront of this shift,” Louis Dreyfus, chief executive officer of Le Monde, said in a statement.
OpenAI said its tool won’t preference news publishers who partnered with the company. Any website or publisher can choose to appear in ChatGPT Search, it said. The company also wants to ensure its search product is useful for people looking for information beyond hard news.
“Search is such a broad space, and this is our first foray into it,” Shetty said. “We’re going to need to spend a lot of time improving the experiences and focusing on shopping, travel, local — all these verticals that are important.”
Still, as with all generative AI products, OpenAI must confront the risk that its new search tool could invent false answers to questions. After SearchGPT was introduced in July, for example, reporters noted that a demo for the product got the dates wrong for a festival.
The stakes are particularly high for OpenAI and its rivals to surface accurate information about the US election next week. Beginning on election day, OpenAI said ChatGPT users who ask about voting results will see a message encouraging them to check news sources like the Associated Press and Reuters, as well as their state or local election boards.
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