What just happened? OpenAI is currently testing a new prototype called SearchGPT and eventually plans to combine its best features into ChatGPT. The offering is only available to a select group at the moment, but based on its description, OpenAI is trying to differentiate SearchGPT from similar products in a few ways, including a collaborative relationship with publishers. At the same time, one can’t help but notice that SearchGPT appears to share several similarities with existing AI chatbots in terms of interface and capabilities.
OpenAI is testing a new prototype called SearchGPT, which combines AI models, including GPT-3.5, GPT-4, and GPT-4o, with web information to provide answers along with linked sources.
It is an offering that sounds very similar to what competing AI chatbot Perplexity does. But SearchGPT appears to want to take on all the AI chatbots and search engines, including Microsoft’s Copilot and Bing, despite Microsoft being a major investor in OpenAI. In other words, OpenAI’s ambitions with SearchGPT appear to be very broad based on the capabilities it describes.
If you want to test the prototype yourself, you are out of luck, as SearchGPT is not available to the general public. Instead, it is being launched to a small group of users and publishers for feedback. You can, however, get on a waitlist to try this new service.
We’re testing SearchGPT, a temporary prototype of new AI search features that give you fast and timely answers with clear and relevant sources.
We’re launching with a small group of users for feedback and plan to integrate the experience into ChatGPT. pic.twitter.com/iQpADXmllH
– OpenAI (@OpenAI) July 25, 2024
OpenAI plans to integrate SearchGPT’s best features directly into ChatGPT in the future. One of its selling points is that it has enhanced conversational capabilities, and that users can ask follow-up questions, with the shared context building with each query.
OpenAI is also billing the new service as supporting publishers and creators by giving them more choices to manage how they appear in SearchGPT – perhaps an attempt to preempt the scrutiny Perplexity and others have faced regarding how it uses and attributes content from publishers. The deal OpenAI struck with News Corp. earlier this year could be a launchpad for this approach.
Another way it seeks to differentiate itself is its emphasis on local information and commerce, especially current events and breaking news. It can, for instance, be used to ask about the weather and upcoming events.
Here it should be noted that generally all AI-powered search engines are designed to provide broad, comprehensive answers and are not optimized for highly localized information that traditional search engines excel at. Local news and commerce require very recent and geographically specific data, which might be challenging for AI models to consistently access and process accurately.
One feature, though, that SearchGPT shares with Perplexity and other chatbots like Copilot is a similar interface. More importantly, many of the chatbots already have offerings similar to those described for SearchGPT. Even OpenAI’s flagship chatbot can even tell you the weather forecast for the day.