Searching like chatting with a friend... Answers Considering Context
OpenAI, the developer of the generative artificial intelligence (AI) ChatGPT, launched a search feature within ChatGPT on the 31st (local time). There are expectations that the search market, currently dominated by Google, will be reorganized around AI.
ChatGPT Search provides users with the latest sports, stock prices, news, weather, and other information along with the information they seek, based on real-time web search and partnerships with news and data providers. It is available on ChatGPT.com and can also be accessed via desktop and mobile apps.
Subscribers to the paid model ChatGPT Plus and team users, as well as those on the waiting list for SearchGPT, can use the feature starting today. ChatGPT Enterprise and Edu users will gain access within weeks. Free users are expected to be able to use it within a few months.
OpenAI has been testing the search feature within ChatGPT under the name SearchGPT since July.
When users ask questions in natural language as if chatting with a friend, ChatGPT automatically searches the web. Users can also click the web search icon to search directly. OpenAI explained that previously, to get the desired information, users had to enter multiple search terms and dig through links, but now they can get better answers through natural conversational questions.
Additionally, users can ask follow-up questions to delve deeper into the topics they want to explore, and ChatGPT provides the best answers considering the context.
The answers in the conversation include links to sources such as news articles or blog posts. Clicking the 'Sources' button below the answer opens a sidebar displaying the reference materials. To enable this, OpenAI has partnered with news organizations including the Associated Press, Reuters, Financial Times, News Corporation, Le Monde, Time, and Vox Media.
The search feature is powered by a fine-tuned version of GPT-4o, OpenAI's most powerful AI model.
With the launch of ChatGPT's search feature, there are forecasts of a significant shift in the search market dominated by Google. According to web traffic analysis websites, as of September, Google holds 90% of the global search market. Although it is a market monopoly, this is a slight decline from 91.58% a year ago.
Market research firm eMarketer predicts that Google's share of the U.S. search advertising market will fall below 50% for the first time in 10 years next year. Google's search advertising market share is estimated at 50.5% this year and 48.3% next year.
OpenAI first unveiled ChatGPT in November 2022, which had previously put Google, then considered the leader in AI, on alert. ChatGPT's weekly active users have increased 1.5 times over the past year to about 250 million.
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