ChatGPT can now search for information on the Internet

In July of this year, OpenAI launched a beta version of its own Internet search engine, SearchGPT. Now the company has announced that the Internet search function is becoming part of the ChatGPT AI bot. Paid subscribers of ChatGPT will be able to evaluate the innovation this week, and it will become available to free users, corporate clients and educational institutions in the coming weeks.

Image source: Mariia Shalabaieva / unsplash.com

OpenAI does not intend to release SearchGPT as a separate product. Instead, the developers integrated the search engine with their ChatGPT chatbot. The algorithm independently determines when to enable web search based on user requests, but if necessary, this function can be launched manually. Integrating web search into ChatGPT will bridge a key competitive gap with OpenAI’s market rivals such as Microsoft Copilot and Google Gemini, which have long offered customers access to online web search. Following this news, shares of Alphabet, Google’s parent company, fell by about 1%.

Image source: OpenAI

According to OpenAI, ChatGPT search provides access to the latest sports scores, stock quotes, weather data and other information through online web searches. During a demonstration of SearchGPT’s capabilities, an OpenAI representative showed how you can easily monitor Apple’s stock price online while simultaneously gaining access to related news. All information provided to the user is accompanied by links to primary sources. In addition to this, there is a sidebar with sources and short descriptions of the articles.

The new search feature will be available on all ChatGPT presence platforms, including Android and iOS, as well as macOS and Windows. According to the developers, the search function was developed based on a “combination of search technologies,” including the Microsoft Bing search engine. Initially, SearchGPT became available to 10 thousand test users, and now the company is making the search engine available to all ChatGPT users.