AI Ecosystem Updates | Issue# 9 [November 15, 2024]
What?
The search experience on the internet was not the most user-friendly one. One would need to put in effort and spend time to find the right sources and information they are looking for. OpenAI aims to change that with ChatGPT search, its new ChatGPT-powered search engine.
About ChatGPT Search
OpenAI’s new ChatGPT search feature provides direct web access, enhancing its ability to give up-to-date responses. The tool provides links to the relevant sources. Users now gain immediate answers on topics like news, sports, stocks, and more through natural-language queries without requiring a separate search engine. The feature is currently available to ChatGPT Plus, Team, and SearchGPT waitlist users, with access for ChatGPT Enterprise and Edu users planned soon. Users with access can also use the Chrome extension, which will set ChatGPT search as the default search engine in Chrome. For optimal performance and results, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman recommends using the upgraded ChatGPT Plus with the new Chrome extension.
How it Works
ChatGPT would search the web automatically based on the request made by us, and we have the option to initiate a search by ourselves clicking the web search icon. The system handles queries through a multi-step process: analyzing context, deciding on search actions, retrieving data, and generating responses. The underlying search model is a fine-tuned version of GPT-4o. The model has been post-trained using novel synthetic data generated using novel techniques, which also includes distilling outputs from OpenAI’s o1-preview model.
ChatGPT search utilizes third-party search providers and content from partners and news publishers to deliver the information that users seek. More here. The OpenAI team worked on improving the SearchGPT prototype (here is our coverage on SearchGPT) based on the feedback received from the waitlist users, and it has since evolved into the more mature ChatGPT search. ChatGPT search separates user queries from third-party search providers like Bing. This implies that ChatGPT’s search engine accesses information from third-party search providers, but keeps user queries separate or anonymous in relation to the providers, likely to enhance user privacy or processing efficiency. Additionally, to improve the search results, ChatGPT also shares the IP addresses of the users with the third-party search providers. More here.
The New Search Experience
With ChatGPT search, the search experience becomes deeper, conversational, immersive, and engaging. Instead of navigating multiple sources across the internet to find the right information, users can find direct answers to their queries along with source links (including news articles and blog posts) within the chat interface, which, previously, would require them to use a separate search engine. The users can view the sources by clicking the Sources button below the response, which opens a sidebar with references.
The search feature allows users to ask follow-up questions and they can choose to explore related topics through the sources listed in the sidebar. ChatGPT will consider the full context of the chat to respond with better answers for its users. Additionally, ChatGPT search is multimodal and integrates text, images, and other modalities of data, making the search experience more visual and immersive. It is fair to say that ChatGPT search significantly elevates the user experience beyond what we have seen in the past.
Partnerships
OpenAI has partnered (i.e., established licensing agreements for content) with news and data providers to deliver timely information and refreshed visuals for categories, such as weather, stocks, sports, news, and maps. The AI behemoth collaborated closely with major publishers, such as Associated Press, Axel Springer, Condé Nast, Dotdash Meredith, Financial Times, GEDI, Hearst, Le Monde, News Corp, Prisa (El País), Reuters, The Atlantic, Time, and Vox Media, and would allow any publisher to opt into ChatGPT search results. The partnerships would ensure accurate content attribution for ChatGPT search.
Future Work
OpenAI plans to enhance the search feature iteratively, particularly in areas like shopping and travel. The AI giant plans to leverage the advanced reasoning capabilities of the OpenAI o1 series of models to strengthen ChatGPT search further. Future updates will expand the search experience to include Advanced Voice, canvas, and access for free and logged-out users.
Thoughts
ChatGPT search, OpenAI’s new AI-powered search engine, integrates high-quality web content directly into conversations, offering users a new way to interact with information. This approach broadens audience reach for content creators and helps users discover diverse publishers and websites. There is no doubt about OpenAI’s new search engine’s potential to reshape the online search experience, not just by providing answers, but by fundamentally changing user interaction with search engines.
By integrating search engine capabilities, OpenAI positions itself as a competitor to Google Search. We do appreciate the fact that OpenAI’s search results are free from sponsored ads thus far, more here. With billions of regular users, Google Search far outnumbers the user base of ChatGPT and other AI chatbots, making it unlikely that Google will need to worry much. Additionally, Google’s wide distribution across platforms, devices, and regions gives it a strong advantage.
It is however likely that there will be a dent in Google’s market share and revenue from Search ads. The Search behemoth will need to innovate at an even faster pace to keep up with emerging competitors in the AI-driven search space, such as Perplexity, OpenAI, and You.com to stay relevant. Perhaps it should consider phasing out the classic search experience and fully transition into an AI-powered, interactive search experience, which would include AI-generated summaries. In fact, Google and Microsoft have been working on bringing AI-driven search results and summaries for Google Search and Bing users. Google expanded its AI Overview program to include AI-generated summaries at the top of Google Search earlier this year. See this interesting article to know what Google’s Gemini feels about ChatGPT search.
ChatGPT search results will be based on licensed content from its media partners. This will not just help OpenAI scale its search engine, but give it an edge over other AI search models like Perplexity, which have not done the same and have been plagued with copyright concerns, see more. The source attributions will help ChatGPT increase search accuracy and reduce hallucinations. Moreover, it will give us a peek into the thought process of ChatGPT’s underlying search model. We anticipate more partnerships with data providers, news publishers, and third-party search engines to expand the tool’s knowledge base with up-to-date information.
We do expect the advent of ChatGPT search to propel research and innovation across the leading tech companies like Google, Microsoft, Perplexity, You.com, as well as others working on AI-assisted search engines. We are excited about the competitive search landscape, which will drive innovation and enhance the user experience. OpenAI’s commitment to further research aimed at improving ChatGPT search is a step in that direction.
If you are interested to learn more, feel free to check out this official blog post by OpenAI. For additional context, we encourage you to check our coverage on SearchGPT.
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Acronyms used in the blog that have not been defined earlier: (a) Artificial Intelligence (AI) and (b) Chief Executive Officer (CEO).