There is now a web search feature on ChatGPT

Key Takeaways

• ChatGPT search has been introduced by OpenAI.
• In addition to its typical responses, the AI may now search for current information.
• To gain access today, you must have a SearchGPT waitlist spot, Plus, or Team.

ChatGPT search, a new tool from OpenAI, can search the web without using a third-party engine like Google.

Although you can manually initiate searches by clicking a button, the generative AI can do a search automatically depending on your queries.

ChatGPT will provide pertinent online links in addition to its results when it performs a search. Ideally, this combines the benefits of conversational AI with the most recent information available through web searches, including stocks, news, and sports scores.

The feature will be accessible through OpenAI’s web, mobile, and desktop applications. Today, ChatGPT Plus and Team members will be granted access, as well as everyone who was in the SearchGPT line. While free users will be able to search at some point in the “coming months,” enterprise and educational users will have to wait a few weeks.

If you have access to Chrome, OpenAI has an extension that makes their search engine the default. The business intends to continue enhancing search in domains such as travel and shopping.

Based on a “fine-tuned” version of GPT-4o that has been post-trained using new synthetic data generation techniques, ChatGPT Search uses a combination of direct partner content and third-party search providers.

OpenAI’s objectives are clear: it is essentially a means of competing with traditional search engines as well as AI-focused engines such as Perplexity. For answers to basic questions or generative AI benefits like Google’s AI Overviews, you might not need to look further.

Additionally, the ChatGPT search clarifies OpenAI’s purported entry into custom chips. By itself, generative AI is computationally taxing, and adding search just makes things more difficult. Specialized hardware may help provide better searches in addition to improving the AI itself.