OpenAI Brings Search Features to ChatGPT in Challenge to Google

(Bloomberg) — OpenAI is adding a new set of search features to its flagship ChatGPT product, increasing the artificial intelligence challenge to Alphabet Inc.’s Google.

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The option, called ChatGPT Search, will allow chatbot users to search for up-to-date information as they would on a website and receive answers through in-line publishing from news publishers and other data sources, OpenAI said Thursday. The company launched a product prototype in July called SearchGPT, which was separate from its ChatGPT app and only available to a limited number of users. The new search engine, which uses OpenAI version 4o, will start with paid ChatGPT Plus. and Thursday Group users for mobile and web. OpenAI’s commercial and educational customers will be able to access the features in the coming weeks and free users sometime in the coming months. After the viral success of ChatGPT in late 2022, technology companies rushed to add AI input to a long list of services, including online search. OpenAI-backer Microsoft Corp. and Google have improved their search products to include more AI-based communication features. Desperate, an AI research startup, is now in early fundraising talks at a $9 billion valuation, Bloomberg previously reported. With ChatGPT Research, OpenAI is about to bring the same AI search experience to the 250 million people who use chatbots every week. Alphabet shares were down more than 1% Thursday after the news.

“People want answers when they search for things, and it’s hard to find an answer online now. It takes a lot of research and you have to go through a lot of teams,” Varun Shetty, head of media relations on OpenAI, he said in an interview with Bloomberg News. “We think being able to ask in a conversational format with all the relevant content and high-quality sources on the one hand makes this a better experience.”

In a pre-release demo, the OpenAI team used this feature to ask ChatGPT about weekly events in San Francisco. The tool displayed a summary of events taken from local news websites. For the next question about searching for restaurants, ChatGPT displayed a map listing local restaurants. While ChatGPT used to include some text in its answers, the new search feature shows source summaries and preview images more.

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OpenAI has laid the groundwork for its search offering with a growing number of license agreements with publishers, including News Corp., Axel Springer SE, Time magazine as well as European media companies such as Le World. These partnerships allow OpenAI to incorporate more powerful, timely data into its products. OpenAI says it has included feedback from publisher partners for ChatGPT Research on how the chatbot determines which articles are most relevant as well as determining summary length and citations for articles. “We are sure that AI research will be, in the near future and for generations to come, the main way to find information, and to interact with OpenAI Le Monde positions at the forefront of this revolution,” Louis Dreyfus, official the largest of Le. Monde, said in a statement.

OpenAI says its app won’t favor publishers who partner with the company. Any website or publisher can choose to appear in ChatGPT Search, it said. The company also wants to make sure its search product is more useful to people looking for information than hard content.

“Research is a very broad field, and this is the first time we are entering it,” Shetty said. “We’re going to need to spend more time improving the experience and focusing on shopping, travel, home – all of these things are important.”

However, like all emerging AI products, OpenAI must face the risk that its new search engine may generate false answers to questions. After SearchGPT was launched in July, for example, journalists noticed that the product demo got the wrong dates for the event.

The stakes are high for OpenAI and its opponents to produce accurate information about next week’s US election. Starting on election day, OpenAI said that ChatGPT users who inquire about election results will see a message prompting them to check news sources such as the Associated Press and Reuters, as well as their state or local election boards. home.

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