OpenAI on Thursday announced a new AI-powered search engine prototype called SearchGPT. The move marks the company\u2019s entry into a competitive search engine market dominated by Google for decades. On its website, OpenAI described<\/a> SearchGPT as \u201ca temporary prototype of new AI search features that give you fast and timely answers with clear and relevant sources.\u201d The company plans to test out the product with 10,000 initial users and then roll it into ChatGPT after gathering feedback.<\/p>\n The launch of SearchGPT comes amid growing competition in AI-powered search. Google, the world\u2019s dominant search engine, recently began integrating<\/a> AI capabilities into its platform. Other startups like the Jeff Bezos-backed Perplexity have also aimed to take on Google and have marketed themselves as \u201canswer engines\u201d that use AI to summarize the internet.<\/p>\n The rise of AI-powered search engines has been controversial. Last month, Perplexity faced criticism<\/a> for summarizing stories from Forbes<\/em> and Wired<\/em> without adequate attribution or backlinks to the publications as well as ignoring robots.txt, a way for websites to tell crawlers that scrape data to back off. Earlier this week, Wired publisher Cond\u00e9 Nast reportedly sent<\/a> a cease and desist letter to Perplexity and accused it of plagiarism.<\/p>\n Perhaps because of these tensions, OpenAI appears to be taking a more collaborative approach with SearchGPT. The company’s blog post emphasizes that the prototype was developed in partnership with various news organizations and includes quotes from the CEOs of The Atlantic<\/em><\/a> and News Corp<\/a>, two of many publishers<\/a> that OpenAI has struck licensing deals with.<\/p>\n \u201cSearchGPT is designed to help users connect with publishers by prominently citing and linking to them in searches,\u201d the company\u2019s blog post says. \u201cResponses have clear, in-line, named attribution and links so users know where information is coming from and can quickly engage with even more results in a sidebar with source links.\u201d OpenAI also noted that publishers will have control over how their content is presented in SearchGPT and can opt out of having their content used for training OpenAI’s models while still appearing in search results.<\/p>\n SearchGPT’s 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 the results with short descriptions and visuals.<\/p>\n For example, when searching for information about music festivals, the engine provides brief descriptions of events along with links for more details. Some users have pointed out, however, that the search engine is already presenting inaccurate information in its results.<\/p>\n In ChatGPT’s recent search engine announcement, they ask for “music festivals in Boone North Carolina in august” <\/p>\n There are five results in the example image in the ChatGPT blog post : <\/p>\n 1: Festival in Boone … that ends July 27 … ChatGPT’s dates are when the box office is\u2026 pic.twitter.com\/OBwNgNcLto<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 kif (@kifleswing) July 25, 2024<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n We reiterate: Please don’t get your news from AI chatbots. <\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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