Following months of speculation, OpenAI has finally unveiled an online search function for ChatGPT (ChatGPT Search), allowing the widely used chatbot to retrieve information from across the web instantly.
According to the AI company, its latest search engine delivers better results than Google, with answers provided in a more chat-like format.
With nearly 90 per cent of the global search engine market share, Google remains the leader, despite Microsoft’s efforts to incorporate AI into Bing, which have not made a noticeable difference.
Instead of being launched as a standalone product, web search will be integrated into ChatGPT’s current interface, determining when to access web results based on user queries, with the option for users to manually initiate searches as well.
With the integration of web search, ChatGPT has now closed a crucial competitive gap with competitors like Microsoft Copilot and Google Gemini, which have consistently offered real-time internet access during AI conversations.
“You can get fast, timely answers with links to relevant web sources, which you would have previously needed to go to a search engine for,” the company said with its release.
It furthermore added, “ChatGPT will choose to search the web based on what you ask, or you can manually choose to search by clicking the web search icon.”
OpenAI’s ChatGPT has become the fastest-growing consumer application in history, reportedly reaching 100 million monthly active users just two months after its launch in late 2022, with an average of around 13 million unique visitors each day during that period.
The company previously releases its Windows app for ChatGPT.
HOW TO USE THE CHATGPT SEARCH
- To use ChatGPT Search, users will need to visit from this link.
- Currently, Plus and Team users are eligible to use it.