OpenAI's SearchGPT: A Promising Challenger to Google, But Not Quite Ready for Prime Time

OpenAI's SearchGPT: A Promising Challenger to Google, But Not Quite Ready for Prime TimeOpenAI, the US artificial intelligence startup behind the popular chatbot ChatGPT, is developing a highly anticipated search engine, SearchGPT. However, based on analyses from YouTube bloggers, search marketing companies, and beta testers, SearchGPT is still a long way from replacing Google

OpenAI's SearchGPT: A Promising Challenger to Google, But Not Quite Ready for Prime Time

OpenAI, the US artificial intelligence startup behind the popular chatbot ChatGPT, is developing a highly anticipated search engine, SearchGPT. However, based on analyses from YouTube bloggers, search marketing companies, and beta testers, SearchGPT is still a long way from replacing Google.

SearchGPT utilizes AI to summarize information from various web pages, providing users with concise and fluent answers, clearly indicating the source of the information. However, the tool performs poorly in handling shopping and local queries, sometimes even providing inaccurate or "hallucinatory" information. The limitations of this search tool prototype suggest that while ChatGPT sparked predictions of some Silicon Valley tech giants being sidelined, OpenAI has a long way to go before posing a genuine threat to Google's search business.

Kayla Wood, an OpenAI spokesperson, said in a phone interview regarding SearchGPT: "We're going to take the best features and integrate them into ChatGPT." When asked if OpenAI's services will include ads like traditional search engines like Google, Wood stated that the company's business model is subscription-based. However, she added that it hasn't been determined if SearchGPT will be offered for free or as part of the ChatGPT subscription.

Since launching ChatGPT in November 2022, tech experts and industry insiders have predicted that AI chatbots will revolutionize how people find information online, potentially disrupting Google's decades-long dominance as the web gateway. In July, OpenAI announced the launch of SearchGPT, further fueling market anticipation. In recent weeks, the company began opening the tool prototype to 10,000 early testers.

OpenAI revealed last month that over 200 million people use ChatGPT weekly, with many posing questions that would have previously been searched through Google. However, this hasn't seemed to impact Google's business, as the company continues to see revenue growth, attributed by Google CEO Sundar Pichai to "continued strong momentum in search," during a July earnings call.

According to search marketing company BrightEdge, despite Microsoft adding an OpenAI-powered chatbot to its Bing search engine last year, market share saw only a slight increase. Compared to Google, Microsoft's search engine remains dwarfed, and Google has recently incorporated its own AI search features.

In its current iteration, OpenAI positions SearchGPT as a one-stop information retrieval tool rather than a traditional search engine. Upon entering a query, SearchGPT provides a concise answer accompanied by subheadings, bullet points, links to information sources, and relevant images. OpenAI states that SearchGPT uses Bing and other data sources to provide information.

Despite SearchGPT's interface being more akin to a traditional search engine than ChatGPT and other conversational chatbots, the tool encourages users to ask follow-up questions. Wood said in an email, "People are already turning to ChatGPT for information, and we want SearchGPT's search functionality to be the go-to platform for users to ask more questions."

For the past decade, Google has been moving in a similar direction, progressively showcasing answers extracted from web pages at the top of search results. While Google considers this approach more helpful for users, some websites criticize Google for leveraging their content, reducing traffic to their pages.

OpenAI declined to provide public access to SearchGPT, informing users on the waitlist in an email last month that the prototype testing slots were filled due to overwhelming interest. Ananay Arora, a software engineer, AI, and cybersecurity researcher, was one of the few granted access to the SearchGPT tool prototype. He stated that the tool currently doesn't seem to pose a significant threat to Google. He was satisfied with the results for local restaurant queries but found that the image quality in other searches was generally mediocre, and source annotation was occasionally confusing.

"Companies like OpenAI, with their history of top-notch models, should be coming up with groundbreaking results," Arora said in a phone interview. However, he added that SearchGPT was "not particularly impressive" compared to ChatGPT.

Daniel Lemire, a technical expert at the educational organization AIMistakes and another early user, has a more positive view of SearchGPT. He believes OpenAI's search tool is superior to Google's inclusion of AI-generated answers or "overviews" in search results.

"I would choose to use SearchGPT over Google every day," Lemire said. However, both Arora and Lemire believe the interface and answers in SearchGPT are less refined than those offered by a smaller startup called Perplexity. Perplexity uses AI for web searches, offering concise answers with source links. The company's CEO previously stated that Perplexity has built its own web index while also utilizing some data from Google and Bing.

Matt Berman, an AI enthusiast, shared his SearchGPT experience in a recent YouTube video, comparing it to both Perplexity and Google's search results. He noted that AI search tools outperformed Google in aspects like event planning and code problem-solving. He said SearchGPT "did a great job" when he asked it to list the top three movie theaters near him and explain why.

However, Berman also encountered instances where the AI tool provided incorrect or "hallucinated" information, a persistent flaw in ChatGPT and its competitors. Berman said in his video, "A big drawback of AI search is it will tell you things that are completely wrong with a lot of confidence."

Similar errors were apparent in a SearchGPT demo video posted by OpenAI on its blog in July, where the tool provided an incorrect date for a music festival. Berman also showcased an example where he asked SearchGPT who would be speaking at the Dreamforce technology conference in San Francisco. SearchGPT replied that it would be OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, but the issue was that Altman wasn't listed as a speaker on the conference website, though he did speak there last year.

Wood explained that SearchGPT is still a preliminary prototype, stating, "We're going to continue to improve it." Last Friday, Google stated that it's limiting AI search results for topics related to the US elections in November, considering "this new technology can get things wrong, particularly when learning or when theres breaking news." OpenAI stated that ChatGPT will direct users to authoritative information when it comes to questions about electoral processes.

BrightEdge, a search marketing company, released a report on SearchGPT last month, which, while not extensively researching the "hallucination" issue, did uncover some examples. Jim Yu, BrightEdge's founder and executive chairman, estimated in an interview that less than 1% of searches returned clearly incorrect information.

BrightEdge's report also found that Google still holds a significant lead in online shopping and local information searches. Google can answer these types of queries by accessing specialized data such as business listings, hotel room availability, or flight information. But this data can be costly: In 2011, Google acquired a flight data provider for $676 million to enhance the accuracy of its travel search results.

Jim Yu said that despite SearchGPT's limitations, it could potentially disrupt the way people access information, similar to how the iPhone revolutionized mobile computing. Wood said OpenAI will continue refining the SearchGPT prototype based on user feedback.