You Can Now Search the Internet Using ChatGPT
OpenAI has an announcement for Halloween : ChatGPT search is now official. The company is finally launching an official competitor to artificial intelligence search engines like Perplexity , Google’s AI Reviews , and Microsoft’s Bing ( powered by Copilot ).
OpenAI originally announced its search plans back in July, releasing a service called SearchGPT . While SearchGPT was a prototype and launched with a waitlist to try it out, ChatGPT search appears to have taken its place: OpenAI has combined the core features of SearchGPT into its new search function.
How ChatGPT search works
At first glance, ChatGPT search is very much a traditional search engine. To use it, click the globe icon when you launch ChatGPT (or press the / key and click Search in the pop-up window) and then enter your query. Let’s say you ask, “What’s the weather like this weekend in New York City?” Press Enter and ChatGPT will think for a moment and then respond to your question.
In this weather example, the ChatGPT search actually has dynamic graphics accompanying the response. OpenAI says it partners with various news and data providers for visual designs and similar updated information. This includes weather, as well as queries related to stocks, sports, news and maps.
Whatever you search on the Internet, ChatGPT will link to its sources, just like other AI-powered search engines. If you ask, for example, “What did Apple announce this week?” the bot recaps the news, covering new MacBook Pro models, a refreshed Mac mini, a refreshed iMac, the release of Apple Intelligence, and new updates to Apple accessories. For all of these summaries, you can see the source they came from and read the article yourself. You can also hover over these sources if you want to view them without opening the entire site.
Additionally, at the bottom of the answer there is a general “Sources” option. Click on it and you’ll see a full list of sources referenced by that summary, as well as a longer list of search results for sources similar to your query. regardless of whether ChatGPT used them.
OpenAI says ChatGPT search is based on a “refined” version of the GPT-4o model and pulls results from the OpenAI o1-preview model . The company has also established partnerships with many news organizations in the industry, including such well-known companies as Condé Nast, Financial Times, Le Monde, The Atlantic and Vox Media. To get its point across (and no doubt to get ahead of criticism), the company included a number of quotes from executives at these media companies about how good its new search engine is.
The company admits there is currently room for improvement: although it has brought the “best” of SearchGPT’s tested features to ChatGPT search, shopping and travel searches still take some time to process. Search is also not available for Advanced Voice and Canvas yet, but that’s coming.
ChatGPT search and privacy
According to OpenAI , when you search for something using ChatGPT’s new web search feature, ChatGPT may forward “unrelated search queries” to other search providers such as Bing. The bot also collects your location information from your IP address and can share it with these search providers to improve the accuracy of search results.
Who can use ChatGPT search?
Like most of ChatGPT’s new features, search is currently unavailable to free and logged out users. To try it out today, you’ll either need to be a ChatGPT Plus or ChatGPT Team user, or you’ll need to be part of the SearchGPT waitlist.
This feature works on both desktop and mobile devices, but you can only view sources without clicking on the desktop web app.
How to set ChatGPT search as default search engine
If you’re tired of Google, Bing or even Perplexity and want to use ChatGPT as your default search engine in the future, you can actually do that. You’ll need to use Chrome and download the ChatGPT search extension .
Now, when you type a query into the address bar, Chrome opens ChatGPT. However, you will need to log into your respective account. Otherwise you will just get results from the standard ChatGPT service and not from search.
Is ChatGPT search accurate?
I often refer to Google’s AI reviews not because it is a reliable use of AI, but because its implementation has been disastrous. While SearchGPT hasn’t made headlines for its inaccuracies, it’s important to remember that generative AI is far from perfect. In fact, every ChatGPT result, including searches, ends with the words “ChatGPT may make mistakes. Please check important information.”
This is because the AI can sometimes hallucinate or simply make up lies. What certainly helps make fact checking easier are linked sources. If you want to double check that the result is correct, click on the source to see if the site matches what ChatGPT says and is generally trustworthy. If ChatGPT says something and quotes AP News, and AP says it’s true, that’s pretty solid. If ChatGPT says something and quotes Trustmebro.fr, be skeptical.
Time will tell whether ChatGPT’s search will be more or less accurate than its competitors. Until then, if you use ChatGPT search or any of these AI-powered search engines, just be careful and check their results.