OpenAI is testing an AI-powered search engine in a bid to compete head-to-head with both Google and its close partner Microsoft Bing.
What’s new: OpenAI released SearchGPT, an integrated search engine and large language model that aims to be friendly to both users and publishers. Access is limited initially to selected trial users. OpenAI offers a wait list but no timeline for expanding access.
How it works: SearchGPT sorts results collected by web crawler, like Google and its competitors. It differs in providing direct answers to queries and offering a conversational user interface for follow-up questions. OpenAI has not disclosed the underlying model.
- Given a question or search string like “best tomatoes to grow in Minnesota,” SearchGPT returns an answer such as a list of tomato varieties. Typically it adds a source for the information (The Garden Magazine) and a link to the published site(s). Other relevant links appear in a sidebar.
- After receiving the initial response, users can refine the search by asking further questions like, “which of these can I plant now?” SearchGPT will generate new results based on context.
- The system draws on information from publishers from which OpenAI licensed copyrighted materials including Associated Press, The Atlantic, Financial Times, and News Corp. OpenAI also has struck licensing deals with online forums including Reddit and Stack Overflow. Whether these partners are favored in search results is not clear.
- The service also draws on web pages indexed by its crawler. Web publishers can opt out of being crawled for indexing, gathering training data, or both.
Behind the news: OpenAI’s move is part of a larger race to supercharge web search with AI.
- Google and Microsoft added AI-generated results and summaries to their search engines last year, and Google expanded its AI Overview program earlier this year. Search GPT amps up OpenAI’s competition with Google, which uses its own Gemini models, but also with its partner Microsoft, whose AI-driven Bing Search and Copilot products rely on OpenAI.
- The startups You.com and Perplexity offer AI-driven search services. Publishers have criticized Perplexity for breaching paywalls, ignoring publishers’ efforts to opt out, and publishing AI-generated summaries of articles produced by other companies on its own websites.
Why it matters: Search stands to be disrupted by advances in AI, and agents that browse multiple articles to synthesize a result are becoming more capable. OpenAI’s approach looks like a step forward (and smart business insofar as it leads users into deeper relationship with its models), and its strategy of licensing content from trusted sources could prove to be an advantage.
We’re thinking: In less than two years, OpenAI has revolutionized expectations of one of the web’s bedrock applications, search. Its progress shows how AI can make applications smarter, more efficient, and more responsive.