On Thursday, OpenAI introduced a new AI-driven search engine prototype named SearchGPT, signaling the company’s entry into the competitive search engine market long dominated by Google. OpenAI described SearchGPT on its website as “a temporary prototype of new AI search features that provide fast and timely answers with clear and relevant sources.” Initially, the product will be tested with 10,000 users, and after gathering feedback, it will be integrated into ChatGPT.
The launch of SearchGPT comes at a time of increasing competition in AI-powered search. Google, the leading search engine, has recently begun incorporating AI capabilities into its platform. Additionally, startups like Perplexity, backed by Jeff Bezos, are positioning themselves as “answer engines” that use AI to summarize web content.
AI-powered search engines have stirred controversy. Perplexity faced criticism for summarizing articles from Forbes and Wired without proper attribution or backlinks and for ignoring robots.txt, which tells web crawlers to avoid certain data. Earlier this week, Condé Nast, the publisher of Wired, reportedly sent a cease and desist letter to Perplexity, accusing it of plagiarism.
In response to these tensions, OpenAI seems to be adopting a more collaborative approach with SearchGPT. The company’s blog post highlights that the prototype was developed in partnership with various news organizations and includes endorsements from the CEOs of The Atlantic and News Corp, with whom OpenAI has established licensing agreements.
“SearchGPT is designed to help users connect with publishers by prominently citing and linking to them in searches,” the blog post states. “Responses feature clear, in-line, named attribution and links, allowing users to know the source of the information and engage further with additional results in a sidebar with source links.” OpenAI also mentioned that publishers have control over how their content is displayed in SearchGPT and can opt out of having their content used to train OpenAI’s models while still appearing in search results.
The SearchGPT interface features a prominent textbox asking users, “What are you searching for?” Unlike traditional search engines like Google that provide a list of links, SearchGPT categorizes results with short descriptions and visuals.
For instance, when searching for information about music festivals, the engine offers brief descriptions of events along with links for more details. However, some users have already noted that the search engine occasionally presents inaccurate information in its results.
In ChatGPT's recent search engine announcement, they ask for "music festivals in Boone North Carolina in august"
There are five results in the example image in the ChatGPT blog post :
1: Festival in Boone … that ends July 27 … ChatGPT's dates are when the box office is… pic.twitter.com/OBwNgNcLto
— kif (@kifleswing) July 25, 2024
Source: Engadget
