OpenAI Unveils SearchGPT: A New Challenger to Google's Search Engine Dominance

The San Francisco-based AI firm announced Thursday the limited release of SearchGPT to 10,000 test users. The search engine is powered by the GPT-4 family of models, which are among the most advanced AI models developed by OpenAI. Kayla Wood, an OpenAI spokesperson, revealed to The Verge that the search engine is still in the "prototype" stage but aims to transform the search experience by offering a more interactive and organized approach to presenting information.

In contrast to traditional search engines that provide a list of links, SearchGPT presents summaries and concise descriptions with attribution links, allowing users to delve deeper into topics with follow-up questions and related links in a sidebar. "SearchGPT is designed to help users connect with publishers by prominently citing and linking to them in searches," OpenAI explained in a blog post, highlighting the clear, in-line attribution as a key feature.

The prototype's introduction comes at a time when Alphabet investors have expressed concerns that OpenAI could capture market share from Google's search engine. The new tool offers the promise of "fast and timely answers with clear and relevant sources," as OpenAI aims to integrate it into its popular ChatGPT chatbot. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman emphasized the potential to "search in a more natural, intuitive way," suggesting a paradigm shift towards conversational search.

Meanwhile, Google has responded to the AI wave by launching its AI Overview feature, which Sundar Pichai, the CEO, described as a significant change in search. However, the feature has faced criticism for returning inaccurate results.

“Google has been kind of shaking in their boots a little bit since this stuff first popped off,” said Daniel Faggella, founder and head of research at Emerj Artificial Intelligence Research, referring to generative artificial intelligence. “We haven’t seem their company crumble in the interim, but we have seen them kind of fumble.”

"OpenAI's launch of SearchGPT may have limitations in real-time search results, maps, and video links where Google's edge has been hard to match for Microsoft Bing and others. Google's integration of AI Overviews has accelerated query volume and top-line growth in search, even with competition from Bing-ChatGPT and Perplexity," said Bloomberg Intelligence analysts Mandeep Singh and Nishat Chintala. "At least 70% of Google search queries won't require an LLM, limiting the use of SearchGPT. An arrangement to be the default search on Apple's iOS ecosystem could aid SearchGPT's adoption."

Google has 90.91% search market share, according to Statcounter's data in May. This is down from 91.38% in March and down from 92.82% YoY. While Microsoft Bing is at 3.64%, up from 2.76% YoY and Yahoo is at 1.13%, up from 1.11% YoY.

Nevertheless, even a modest gain in market share could prove to be significant for OpenAI. Microsoft's Chief Financial Officer, Amy Hood, highlighted to analysts the substantial value of search advertising market share when the company introduced its Bing search engine enhanced with generative AI in 2022. Hood pointed out that acquiring just one percentage point of the market share in this segment could translate to an annual revenue increase of $2 billion.

Alphabet shares fell more than 3% on Thursday to close at $167.28 following the news.

OpenAI's proactive approach to refining its search features and adding top executives to its team echoes its ambition to remain a leader in the generative AI space.

The announcement of SearchGPT follows the recent introduction of "GPT-4o mini," an offshoot of OpenAI's most powerful model to date. With multimodality as a key focus, OpenAI is poised to offer a diverse range of AI-generated media within ChatGPT, aiming for a "richer understanding" for users.

As the AI landscape continues to evolve, OpenAI's partnership with publishers and its strategic hiring moves signal a company gearing up for a major role in shaping the future of human-computer interaction. With SearchGPT, OpenAI is not only challenging the status quo of search but is also setting a new standard for how AI and human ingenuity can coalesce to enhance our digital lives.