ChatGPT Search has been available for about a month and a half now. according to a Halloween announcement from OpenAI. With this new feature, the company has finally introduced an official competitor to AI search engines like confusionGoogles AI overviewsand Microsoft Bing (driven by copilot).
OpenAI originally announced its search plans back in July. with a service called SearchGPT. While SearchGPT was a prototype and launched with a waiting list to try out, ChatGPT Search has taken its place with OpenAI integrating SearchGPT’s key features into its new search functionality. Originally the feature was only available to paying subscribers, but now all users can access it.
This is how ChatGPT search works
On the surface, ChatGPT Search is essentially a traditional search engine. To use it, click the globe icon when starting ChatGPT (or press the / key and click Seek from the popup) and then enter your request. Let’s say you ask, “What’s the weather in New York City this weekend?” Press Enter, ChatGPT will “think” for a moment and then spit out an answer to your question.
For this weather example, the ChatGPT search actually has some dynamic graphics to match its answer. OpenAI says it has worked with various news and data providers for visual designs and updated information like this. This includes the weather, but also queries about stocks, sports, news and maps.
Photo credit: Jake Peterson
Whatever you search for on the Internet, ChatGPT cites the sources, like other AI-powered search engines. For example, if you ask, “What are the latest Nintendo Switch 2 rumors?” The bot summarizes the latest news and talks about magnetic Joy-Cons, a new button, backwards compatibility with the original Switch, and a new stand. For all of these summaries, you can see the source they came from and click through to read the full article for yourself. You can also hover over these sources if you want to see a preview without opening the entire website.
Additionally, there is a general “Sources” option at the end of the answer: click on it and you can see a full list of sources referenced in this summary, as well as a longer list of search results for sources similar to your search query – regardless of whether ChatGPT used them or not.
According to OpenAI, ChatGPT search is based on a “fine-tuned” version of it GPT-4o modeland distills expenses The o1 preview model from OpenAI. The company has also worked with many industry news organizations, including notable companies such as Condé Nast, Financial Times, Le Monde, The Atlantic and Vox Media. To make its point (and no doubt forestall criticism), the company has included a series of quotes from executives at these media companies about the quality of its new search engine.
On the eighth day of the company’s 12 Days of OpenAI event, OpenAI announced that ChatGPT search is coming soon Augmented voicesomething that wasn’t included when the search was originally started.
ChatGPT search and privacy
According to OpenAIWhen you search for something using ChatGPT’s new web search feature, ChatGPT may share “unmapped searches” with other search providers such as Bing. The bot also extracts your location information from your IP address and may share it with these search providers to improve the accuracy of search results.
Who can use ChatGPT search?
This feature was originally only available for ChatGPT Plus or ChatGPT Team users, but now all users can access it. However, you must be logged into your account to try it out.
The feature works on both desktop and mobile devices. In fact, OpenAI rolled out some mobile experience optimizations during its 12-day event, including linked results that you can preview without opening them in your browser. This also includes the ability to view directions on a map directly in ChatGPT.
How to set ChatGPT search as your 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 need to use and download Chrome the ChatGPT search extension.
Now when you enter a search query in your address bar, Chrome will open ChatGPT. However, you must be logged in to your authorized account. Otherwise you will only get a result from the default ChatGPT service and not from search.
Is ChatGPT search correct?
I often refer to Google’s AI overviews, not because it’s a reliable use of AI, but because the rollout has been so disastrous. Although SearchGPT didn’t make any significant headlines for inaccuracies, it’s important to remember that generative AI is far from perfect. In fact, every result from ChatGPT, including search, ends with “ChatGPT can make mistakes. Review important information.”
That’s because AI can sometimes hallucinateor just make up things that aren’t true. What certainly makes fact checking easier are the linked sources. If you want to check whether a result is correct, click through the source to see whether that website both reflects 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. When ChatGPT says something and quotes trustmebro.fr, be skeptical.
Everything that was said Lifehacker writer David Nield was impressed with ChatGPT’s search capabilities when he took on Google – especially when it came to complicated, multi-layered search queries. It seems worth a look, but remember to be careful when accepting anything generated by AI.
