OpenAI announced a new AI-powered search engine prototype called SearchGPT, marking the company‘s entry into the competitive market dominated by Google. Described as “a temporary prototype of new AI search features”, the company’s own search tool aims to deliver fast and timely answers with clear and relevant sources.
The prototype was developed in partnership with various news organisations, including The Atlantic and News Corp, with whom OpenAI has licensing deals. The company emphasises that SearchGPT is designed to connect users with publishers by prominently citing and linking to sources, offering clear attribution and links. Publishers also have control over how their content is presented and can opt out of having their content used for training OpenAI’s models.
SearchGPT relies on the company’s GPT-4 model, and features a simple interface with a prominent search box. Results, on the other hand, are categorised with short descriptions and visuals rather than direct links, though each one does come with a hyperlink to the reference material listed. As with ChatGPT, users can also ask follow-up questions, and it will understand the context of the query.
For now, OpenAI’s prototype search engine is not yet open to the public, and is only offered to a limited number of users only. The company says it plans to test SearchGPT with 10,000 initial users before integrating it into ChatGPT.
(Source: OpenAI [official blog])
