OpenAI is testing a new search engine that uses generative artificial intelligence to generate results, raising the possibility of a major challenge to Google's dominance of the online search market.
The company said Thursday that SearchGPT will launch with a small number of users and publishers before rolling out more broadly. OpenAI eventually intends to incorporate search capabilities into ChatGPT as well as offer it as a standalone product.
According to OpenAI, SearchGPT is a preliminary prototype that combines the company's AI models, such as ChatGPT, with internet search capabilities to respond to searches in a conversational format and provide up-to-date information with “clear links to relevant sources.”
The search feature will position the company as a direct competitor to major search engines, including not only Google but also Bing, a product of Microsoft, OpenAI's largest investor.
The integration of generative AI into search engines has become something of an arms race among technology companies, despite AI having a history of producing inaccurate results and raising copyright concerns.
“Finding answers on the web can take a lot of effort and often requires multiple tries to get relevant results,” OpenAI said in a blog post praising the “new way” to search. “We believe that by enhancing our models' conversational capabilities with real-time information from the web, it will be faster and easier to find what you're looking for.”
Depending on how SearchGPT presents and cites its sources, there is a risk of increased backlash from publishers over how OpenAI uses their content.
Several news outlets and media organizations, including The New York Times, The Chicago Tribune, The Intercept, and local newspapers, have filed lawsuits against the company in recent months for alleged copyright infringement, alleging that OpenAI has trained AI models on their published work without their permission, profiting from their protected material and effectively stealing their work.
OpenAI denies claims that its use of copyrighted data in training products like ChatGPT is illegal, arguing instead that its services create something new and fall under the “fair use” doctrine.
Other companies' forays into AI-generated search have also drawn backlash from users and publishers. Google recently launched its own AI-enabled search feature, called AI Overviews, which summarizes the content of search results without requiring users to click through to other websites.
While Google touted the success of the feature during its earnings call this week, its introduction was met with criticism from publishers and creators who were concerned that AI Overviews would reduce traffic and advertising revenue to their sites.
Another well-known AI-powered search engine, Perplexity, is able to produce results that are nearly identical to the text of the news articles it uses as sources. Several publishers have sent legal threats to Perplexity, demanding that the search engine stop using their content in search results.
OpenAI said it is partnering with publishers for SearchGPT to give them choice over how their content appears in search results while also working to promote trusted sources of information.
The company's press release included statements from the CEO of The Atlantic and the CEO of News Corp, who reportedly signed lucrative content deals with OpenAI, praising AI-powered search as the future of the internet.
The possibility that OpenAI could revolutionize the online search industry comes as Google awaits a court ruling in a landmark antitrust lawsuit brought by the U.S. Department of Justice. The suit alleges that the tech giant illegally monopolized the internet search industry by signing multi-billion-dollar deals with companies like Apple and Samsung to use OpenAI as the default browser on their devices.
