OpenAI Launches ChatGPT Search Engine to Take On Google

• After first talking about it in May, OpenAI has finally integrated a search engine into ChatGPT.
• ChatGPT Search will allow users to get information on current events, which the tool couldn't do before.
• The feature is currently only available to paid users, but the paywall is expected to be removed in the coming months.

After months of speculation, OpenAI has finally added a search engine to ChatGPT, directly challenging Google's dominance in the search industry for the first time.

The news about this integration first came out in May, but ever since there has been a lot of ambiguity surrounding it. Nobody knew how it would work or if the company would even follow through with its promise.

However, in July 2024, the company released a prototype for SearchGPT, and using the feedback it received, brought the best of SearchGPT to ChatGPT. Here is the company's official launch announcement.

About the Integration: How Will It Work?

When ChatGPT first came out in 2022, it couldn't help users with queries on current events. To fix this, the company decided to partner with news organizations that will supply it with real-time news.

Over the last few months, OpenAI signed deals with a number of news outlets, such as the Financial Times, Conde Nast, the Associated Press, Hearst, News Corps, and Reuters. Plus, it's expected to add more news partners in the future.

Additionally, the tool also leverages content from other third parties to ensure its users get the perfect response for every query they enter in the search bar.

After the update, if you ask a question concerning a current event, ChatGPT will respond with a news summary. If you want the link to the original source, just click the Sources" button at the bottom of the page and a new sidebar window will appear, containing links to all the references.

Simply put, it really looks and feels like a traditional search engine. Just like Google, the new feature adds categories to the main page. There are five categories at the time of writing: weather, stocks, sports, news, and maps.

ChatGPT Search vs Google

We got hands-on with SearchGPT and tested it out by asking a simple question, Do I need hiking shoes for medium hikes?"

As you can see, the tool first gave us a summarized response. I really like how sleek and clutter-free the interface is. It's easy to navigate, and most importantly, there aren't any sponsored or pop-up ads to annoy you.

It's worth noting that Google does something similar, thanks to its AI Overview feature. However, we found ChatGPT's summary to be better. The following is what Google threw at me when I asked it the same question.

While ChatGPT Search accurately answered the question, addressing why hiking shoes are needed for medium hikes, Google's AI Overview focused on the distinctions between various hiking shoe types, providing valuable information given the context, but it failed to address the main search query.

Additionally, ChatGPT Search's summaries are concise, whereas Google's can be quite long-winded. At the end of the summary, there's a Sources" button. As mentioned earlier, clicking on it displayed a list of all the references.

Next, I asked ChatGPT Search for some product recommendations. It churned out a handful of suggestions with direct links to the products.

One of the biggest takeaways, however, is that ChatGPT's search engine is currently only available to paid users of ChatGPT Plus, Teams, and those on the SearchGPT waitlist. You can access it through ChatGPT's website or via its desktop/mobile app.

With that said, OpenAI does indeed plan to roll it out to everyone for free in the future. But until that happens, there's hardly a case to be made for SearchGPT blunting Google's dominance.

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