On Thursday, July 25th, 2024, OpenAI announced that it was testing a new search engine called SearchGPT that uses generative artificial intelligence to produce results, raising the prospect of a significant challenge to the Google-dominated online search engine market.

The search engine that everyone has been waiting for, SearchGPT, is currently being tested by OpenAI. The new tool will take direct aim at Google's hegemony in well-known search services. OpenAI declared that in order to improve search results and properly credit sources, SearchGPT will use data from business partners.

The business said that SearchGPT will begin with a limited number of users and publishers before possibly being rolled out more widely. In the end, OpenAI doesn't want to provide a stand-alone solution; instead, it wants to merge the search functions into ChatGPT.

What to Expect With SearchGPT

SearchGPT
Image Source: Search Engine Land

According to OpenAI, SearchGPT is a working prototype that aims to integrate internet search functionality with the company's AI models, including ChatGPT. It will converse with users in response to queries and deliver current data along with "clear links to relevant sources."

The search capability positions the business as a direct competitor to major search engines, most notably Google but also Bing, a product of OpenAI’s biggest backer Microsoft. According to OpenAI, they are presently developing a temporary prototype.

“Getting answers on the web can take a lot of effort, often requiring multiple attempts to get relevant results,” OpenAI said in a blogpost which hailed “a new way” to search. “We believe that by enhancing the conversational capabilities of our models with real-time information from the web, finding what you’re looking for can be faster and easier.”

The change is a result of Google, who for years controlled the search market, finding it difficult to stay up with the quick advancement of AI technology, which was first made possible by OpenAI's release of ChatGPT in November 2022. Furthermore, SearchGPT was able to compete with Microsoft's Bing last year thanks to OpenAI technology, in an effort to provide more competition.

However  "AI-powered search tools from OpenAI and Perplexity re-affirm search as a content engagement model but pressure Google to be better at its own game," Canaccord Genuity analyst Kingsley Crane said.

The corporation has been the target of legal action in recent months from a number of news publications and media organizations, including the New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, the Intercept, and numerous local papers, alleging copyright violations. They contend that OpenAI profited from protected content and effectively plagiarized their work by illegally training its AI models on their published work without permission or payment.

OpenAI has refuted claims that its use of copyrighted data in training programs such as ChatGPT was unlawful, stating that its services constitute original work and are covered by the "fair use" doctrine.

In a statement on its website, the company said, "We're testing SearchGPT, a prototype of new search features designed to combine the strength of our AI models with information from the web to give you fast and timely answers with clear and relevant sources. We're launching with a small group of users and publishers to get feedback. While this prototype is temporary, we plan to integrate the best of these features directly into ChatGPT in the future. If you're interested in trying the prototype, sign up (opens in a new window) for the waitlist."

The usage of AI-generated search by other corporations has also sparked criticism from publishers and users. Recently, Google introduced AI Overviews, a function that allows users to search with AI. The launch of the feature was criticized by publishers and artists who were worried that AI Overviews would take visitors and advertising money away from their websites, despite Google bragging about it on this week's earnings call.

Perplexity, another well-known AI-powered search engine, is able to generate results that are almost exact replicas of the content found in the news items it pulls from. A number of publishers have threatened legal action against Perplexity and requested that the search engine stop displaying their content in results.

The CEOs of News Corp and The Atlantic, who purportedly signed hefty content deals with OpenAI, made statements in the company's news release endorsing AI-enabled search as the internet's future.

The US Department of Justice's historic antitrust lawsuit against Google is about to reach a court verdict, which might have a significant impact on the online search market due to OpenAI. According to the lawsuit, the tech giant illegally monopolized the internet search market by entering into multibillion-dollar agreements to set its browser as the default one on devices made by Apple and Samsung.

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