Last Thursday, OpenAI officially unveiled SearchGPT, a search tool that promises to provide "timely answers" to questions using information pulled from the web. This new feature is designed to compete not only with emerging players like Perplexity but also with established giants like Google and Bing. SearchGPT shares interface similarities with OpenAI's chatbot platform, ChatGPT. Users can enter a query and receive information and photos from the web, along with links to relevant sources. Additionally, it allows follow-up questions or exploration of related searches in a sidebar.
Features and Privacy
A distinctive feature of SearchGPT is its ability to consider the user's location in certain searches. According to an OpenAI support document, SearchGPT "collects and shares" general location information with third-party search providers to improve the accuracy of results, such as showing a list of nearby restaurants or the weather forecast. Users can also choose to share more precise location information via a toggle in the settings menu.
The tool is powered by OpenAI's models, specifically GPT-3.5, GPT-4, and GPT-4o. It is currently described as a prototype, with its initial release targeted at "a small group" of users and publishers, with a waitlist available for others interested. OpenAI has also indicated plans to integrate some features of SearchGPT into ChatGPT in the future. The company has noted in a blog post that "getting answers on the web can take a lot of effort, often requiring multiple attempts to get relevant results." The company believes that by enhancing the conversational capabilities of its models with real-time web information, finding what one needs can be faster and easier.
Challenges and Controversies in AI-Driven Search
The launch of SearchGPT comes at a challenging time, as AI-driven search tools are under scrutiny for issues like plagiarism, inaccuracies, and content cannibalization. For instance, Google's AI summary function has faced problems, including an instance where it suggested putting glue on a pizza. The Browser Company's Arc Search mistakenly informed a journalist that severed toes would grow back. Perplexity has also been accused of plagiarizing news articles from other outlets without giving credit.
These tools generate summaries that threaten to decrease traffic to the sites from which they source their information. A study found that AI-generated summaries could negatively impact about 25% of publisher traffic due to the de-emphasis on article links.
In this context, OpenAI is positioning SearchGPT as a more responsible implementation. The company assures that SearchGPT "prominently cites and links" to publishers in searches with "clear, in-line, named attribution." Additionally, it claims to be working with publishers to design the experience and provide a mechanism for website owners to manage how their content appears in search results. The tech company emphasizes that SearchGPT is focused exclusively on search and is separate from training OpenAI's generative AI foundation models. Sites can appear in search results even if they opt out of generative AI training, underscoring its commitment to a thriving ecosystem of publishers and creators.
Despite these assurances, skepticism remains, especially considering OpenAI's past history of using millions of YouTube transcripts without permission to train its models. It remains to be seen how the story of SearchGPT will unfold and whether OpenAI will be able to fulfill its promises of responsibility and ethics in online search.
