In a bold move to challenge Google’s dominance in the search engine market, OpenAI has announced it is testing new AI search features that could revolutionize how users find information online. The new tool, dubbed “SearchGPT”, aims to provide fast and timely answers with clear and relevant sources, directly competing with Google’s search engine.
OpenAI is rolling out the SearchGPT prototype to a limited number of users for feedback, with plans to eventually integrate the experience into its flagship chatbot, ChatGPT. The company emphasized that SearchGPT was developed in collaboration with various news partners, including the owners of The Wall Street Journal, The Associated Press, and Vox Media.
The launch of SearchGPT comes just a day before Google holds its I/O conference, where the search engine giant is expected to announce a raft of new AI features. This tactical move by OpenAI is likely to aggravate the longstanding rivalry between the two companies and place it in direct competition with existing AI search engines, such as $1 billion AI search startup Perplexity AI.
SearchGPT will work in a similar way to ChatGPT, but will use insights from Microsoft Bing to present users with up-to-date information and citations from the web. The AI search engine is powered by the GPT-4 family of models and will only be accessible to 10,000 test users at launch.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman explained that the AI search engine builds on the intersection of large language models (LLMs) and search, and aims to be better than Google by presenting information in a less “boring” manner. “The thing that’s exciting to me is not that we can go build a better copy of Google Search, but that maybe there’s just a much better way to help people find, act on, and synthesise information,” Altman said in a podcast with Lex Fridman.
However, despite Google being the first port of call for most netizens, the way that users are answering queries is evolving, and it is unclear whether the search engine is doing enough to secure its position in the long term.
As the race for artificial intelligence dominance continues, OpenAI’s launch of SearchGPT is a significant development that could potentially disrupt the search engine market. It remains to be seen how Google will respond to this challenge, but one thing is clear: the battle for AI supremacy is heating up.