With Google in its sights, OpenAI unveils SearchGPT

Date:

Share post:


OpenAI may have designs to get into the search game — challenging not only upstarts like Perplexity, but Google and Bing, too.

The company on Thursday unveiled SearchGPT, a search feature designed to give “timely answers” to questions, drawing from web sources.

UI-wise, SearchGPT isn’t too far off from OpenAI’s chatbot platform ChatGPT. You type in a query, and SearchGPT serves up information from the web along with links to relevant sources, at which point you can ask follow-up questions or explore additional, related searches in a sidebar.

Powered by OpenAI models, SearchGPT — which OpenAI describes as a prototype — is launching today for “a small group” of users and publishers. (There’s a waitlist here.) OpenAI says that it plans to integrate some features of SearchGPT into ChatGPT in the future.

“Getting answers on the web can take a lot of effort, often requiring multiple attempts to get relevant results,” OpenAI writes in a blog post. “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.”

Image Credits: SearchGPT

It’s long been rumored that OpenAI’s taken an interest in launching a Google killer of sorts. The Information reported in February that a product — or at least a pilot — was in the works. But the launch of SearchGPT comes at an inopportune moment: as AI-powered search tools are under justifiable fire for plagiarism, inaccuracies and content cannibalism.

Google’s take on AI-powered search, AI Overviews, infamously suggested putting glue on a pizza. The Browser Company’s Arc Search told one reporter that cut-off toes will grow back. AI search engine Genspark at one time readily recommended weapons that could be used to kill someone. And Perplexity ripped off news articles written by other outlets, including CNBC, Bloomberg, and Forbes, without giving credit or attribution.

AI-generated overviews threaten to cannibalize traffic to the sites from which they source their info. Indeed, they already are, with one study finding that AI Overviews could negatively affect about 25% of publisher traffic due to the de-emphasis on article links.

OpenAI — taking a page out of Perplexity’s ongoing apology tour — is positioning SearchGPT as a more responsible, measured deployment.

OpenAI says that SearchGPT “prominently cites and links” to publishers in searches with “clear, in-line, named attribution.” It also says that it’s working with publishers to design the experience and providing a way for website owners to manage how their content appears in search results.

“Importantly, SearchGPT is about search and is separate from training OpenAI’s generative AI foundation models. Sites can be surfaced in search results even if they opt out of generative AI training,” OpenAI clarifies in the blog post. “We are committed to a thriving ecosystem of publishers and creators.”

It’s a bit tough to take a company that once scraped millions of YouTube transcripts without permission to train its models at their word. But we’ll see how the SearchGPT saga unfolds.



Source link

Lisa Holden
Lisa Holden
Lisa Holden is a news writer for LinkDaddy News. She writes health, sport, tech, and more. Some of her favorite topics include the latest trends in fitness and wellness, the best ways to use technology to improve your life, and the latest developments in medical research.

Recent posts

Related articles

Amazon’s telehealth platform adds low-cost plans for hair loss, skin care, and more

Amazon One Medical is expanding its telehealth services with the launch of upfront and low-cost treatment plans...

Sales tax automation startup Kintsugi doubled its valuation this year

A 2018 Supreme Court ruling eliminated the requirement that an e-commerce retailer needed a physical location in...

Snapchat will soon be able to alert parents when their teen leaves or arrives at certain locations

Snapchat is bringing enhanced location sharing to Family Center, its parental controls hub, the company announced Thursday. Users...

PayPal once again lets you pool money from others to pay for things together

PayPal is launching a few features that let users in groups pool money with friends or family,...

US confirms China-backed hackers breached telecom providers to steal wiretap data

The U.S. government has confirmed that hackers with links to China breached multiple U.S. telecommunication service providers...

Tessl raises $125M at at $500M+ valuation to build AI that writes and maintains code

Many startups and larger tech companies have taken a crack at building artificial intelligence to code software....

Atlas.co wants its web-based mapping tool to be the Figma of geospatial data

Startup inspiration can strike anywhere. But for Atlas.co*, a freemium browser-based, real-time mapping tool that’s being built...

ePlane looks to ride the Indian government’s interest in air taxis with new $14M round

Soaring private vehicle ownership and declining use of public and non-motorized transport have created mounting traffic congestion...