OpenAI is venturing into a domain long dominated by Google with the launch of SearchGPT, an AI search engine capable of real-time internet information access.
Announced on Thursday, this move sets the AI giant in competition with its biggest supporter Microsoft with Bing, as well as emerging services like Perplexity. Perplexity is a search-focused AI chatbot company backed by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and semiconductor giant Nvidia.
Following the announcement by OpenAI, Alphabet, Google's parent company, saw its stock drop by 3% on Thursday.
OpenAI stated that registrations for the new tool have been opened. The tool is currently in its prototype stage and is being tested with a select group of users and publishers. The company plans to integrate the best features of this search tool into ChatGPT in the future.
Kingsley Crane, an analyst at Canaccord Genuity, commented, "The AI-driven search tools from OpenAI and Perplexity underscore the importance of search as a mode of content interaction but also put pressure on Google to enhance its services."
According to website analytics company Statcounter, as of June, Google holds 91.1% of the search engine market share.
In a blog post, OpenAI mentioned that SearchGPT will provide summary search results with source links based on user queries. Users can also ask follow-up questions and receive contextually relevant answers.
