OpenAI is releasing a prototype search engine replacement for “a small group of users and publishers,” which will likely compete with Google Search. OpenAI announced in a blog post on July 25 that SearchGPT will combine machine-generated content with up-to-date information pulled from the web.
Organizations interested in trying out the SearchGPT prototype can join the waiting list.
‘Visual answers’ and natural language differentiate SearchGPT from Google
OpenAI differentiates SearchGPT from the Google Search Generative Experience in a few ways.
Users can ask follow-up questions using general language about their search. In the example below, “The Jones House One” refers to the festival venue the user originally referenced.
In addition, users will be able to open tabs to see links directly to websites, or get “visual answers,” which are charts or videos. It’s not yet clear whether the visual answers will be generated by AI, pulled from the web, or a mix of both.
OpenAI has partnered with a number of media companies – including The Atlantic and News Corp – and has tried to assure publishers that links to original content will be prominently displayed in SearchGPT results.
Google dominates the competitive landscape for SearchGPT, but that could change
Google may have been fixing things that weren’t broken for the past few years, optimizing Google Search to answer questions and promote high-quality search results. The introduction of AI-powered search generative experiences changed Google Search even further, adding custom answers to some queries. As of July 2023, Google has 81.95% of the worldwide search engine market share.
Meanwhile, Microsoft added first Bing Chat and then a sophisticated generative AI answer format to its search engine.
The race to be a user’s first stop on the Internet is over. If SearchGPT gains market share as the front page, it could compete with the same search engines that have added generative AI in the last two years, for which OpenAI is famous.
See: Meta recently announced its most powerful AI model ever with Llama 3.1.
The nature of search engines is also changing, from directories of Internet content by subject to question-answer machines that retrieve information from the Web.
“This is potentially huge news in the world of search,” Damian Rollison, director of market insights at marketing firm SOCi, said in an email to TechRepublic. “ChatGPT is perhaps best positioned of all competitors to end Google’s dominance in search, and aspects of the new interface, such as ‘visual answers,’ seem innovative and potentially disruptive. However, of all the areas for ChatGPT to compete with Google, search is the one where Google’s power is strongest, with a 26-year lead.”
The other major player in this field is Perplexity AI, which has already established itself as an “AI-powered answer engine”. Perplexity AI can be used in a browser or app, and unlike ChatGPT, it can derive information from existing information.
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