OpenAI brings search to ChatGPT, heating up rivalry with Google

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT)-backed OpenAI is adding a new set of search features to ChatGPT, heating up the tech competition with Alphabet’s (GOOG) (GOOGL) Google.

The AI startup said users can get fast, timely answers with links to relevant web sources. ChatGPT will choose to search the web based on what the users ask or they can manually choose to search by clicking the web search icon.

The company added that Search will be available at chatgpt.com⁠ and on its desktop and mobile apps. All ChatGPT Plus and Team users, and SearchGPT waitlist users, will have access today.

Enterprise and Edu users will get access in the next few weeks, while the feature will be rolled out all free users over the coming months.

In July, the company had unveiled the prototype of the product, SearchGPT.

OpenAI said it has also partnered with news and data providers to add up-to-date information and new visual designs for categories such as weather, stocks, sports, news, and maps. Chats now include links to sources, such as news articles and blog posts.

Google has also been upping its AI game amid challenge from AI rivals. Earlier today, the search giant announced that it was bringing its Gemini AI chatbot to its Maps application. Google has already brought AI Overviews to its Search tool. The company has also introduced advertisements to AI Overviews and is bringing shopping ads to Google Lens.

OpenAI said on Thursday that the search model is a fine-tuned version of GPT-4o, post-trained using novel synthetic data generation techniques, including distilling outputs from OpenAI o1-preview.

ChatGPT search uses third-party search providers, as well as content provided directly by its partners, according to the company.

OpenAI said it collaborated with the news industry and listened to feedback from its publisher partners, including Associated Press, Axel Springer, Condé Nast, Dotdash Meredith, Financial Times, GEDI, Hearst, Le Monde, News Corp, Prisa (El País), Reuters, The Atlantic, Time, and Vox Media. Any website or publisher can choose to appear in ChatGPT search.

Training large language models using the help of copyrighted material has become a contentious issue. In December 2023, The New York Times sued Microsoft (MSFT) and OpenAI for copyright infringement, alleging that the tech companies illegally used the newspaper’s content to train AI models.

“We are convinced that AI search will be, in a near future and for the next generations, a primary way to access information, and partnering with OpenAI positions Le Monde at the forefront of this shift,” said Louis Dreyfus, CEO and publisher of Le Monde.