OpenAI is adding a new set of search features to its flagship product ChatGPT, further challenging Alphabet Inc’s AI startup.
The option, called ChatGPT Search, will allow chatbot users to search for timely information like they do on the web and get responses with direct attribution to news publishers and other data sources, OpenAI said Thursday. The company rolled out a prototype of the product in July called SearchGPT, which was separate from its ChatGPT app and only available to a limited number of users.
The new search capabilities, which use the OpenAI 4o model, will launch to paid ChatGPT Plus and Team users on Thursday for mobile and web. OpenAI enterprise and education customers will be able to access the features in the coming weeks and users for free sometime in the coming months.
Following the huge success of ChatGPT in late 2022, technology companies have raced to integrate generative AI into a long list of services, including online search. Microsoft and Google backed OpenAI They overhauled their search products To include more conversational AI features. Perplexity, a rival AI research startup, is now in early talks to raise $9 billion in funding, Bloomberg reports. I mentioned previously. With ChatGPT search, OpenAI is poised to bring AI-like search functionality to the 250 million people who use a chatbot every week.
Alphabet shares fell more than 1% on Thursday following the news.
“People want answers when they search for things, and getting an answer is difficult on the internet right now. It requires multiple searches and you have to go through a bunch of links,” Varun Shetty, head of media partnerships at OpenAI, said in an interview with Bloomberg News. “We think being able to ask questions in a conversational way with all that relevant context and high-quality sources on the other side makes that experience better.”
In a pre-release demo, the OpenAI team used this feature Ask ChatGPT about weekend events in San Francisco. The app showed a summary list of activities taken from local news sites. For the follow-up question about searching for restaurants, ChatGPT showed a map listing local restaurants. While ChatGPT previously included some citations in its responses, the new search feature displays summaries of sources and preview images more clearly.
OpenAI has laid the foundation for its research offering through a growing number of Licensing deals with publishersincluding News Corp. Axel Springer SE and Time magazine, as well as European media companies such as Le Monde. Partnerships allow OpenAI to include more reliable and up-to-date information within its products. OpenAI said it incorporated feedback from the publishing partners of the ChatGPT research on how the chatbot determines the most relevant articles as well as determines abstract length and bids for articles.
“We are convinced that research into artificial intelligence will, in the near future and for generations to come, an essential means of accessing information, and the partnership with OpenAI puts Le Monde at the forefront of this transformation,” said Louis-Dreyfus, CEO of Le Monde. Mond said in a statement.
OpenAI said its tool would not favor news publishers who partnered with the company. Any website or publisher can choose to appear in a ChatGPT search, she said. The company also wants to make sure its search product is useful to people looking for information beyond hard news.
“Research is a very broad field, and this is our first experience in it,” Shetty said. “We will need to spend a lot of time improving experiences and focusing on shopping, travel and local – all these important sectors.”
However, as with all generative AI products, OpenAI must face the risk that its new search tool might invent false answers to questions. After SearchGPT was introduced in July, for example, Journalists noted That the product demo had gotten the festival dates wrong.
The risks are particularly high for OpenAI and Her competitors will reveal accurate information about the US elections next week. Starting on Election Day, OpenAI said ChatGPT users who ask about voting results will see a message encouraging them to check news sources like the Associated Press and Reuters, as well as their state or local boards of elections.
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