In a significant step, OpenAI has added a search function to their chatbot ChatGPT that provides the most recent news, stock prices, sports scores, weather, and more. Following the move, Microsoft’s stock fell more than 6%, while Alphabet, the parent company of Google, saw a nearly 2% decrease in shares.
On Thursday, Alphabet’s stock dropped 1.98 percent to $172.65, while Microsoft’s stock plunged 6.05 percent to $406.35 on the Nasdaq. Investors are worried that Google, Microsoft’s Bing, Perplexity, and other search engines may directly compete with the most recent ChatGPT search capability.
What is OpenAI Search Engine?
With the development of a ChatGPT-powered search engine, OpenAI may directly compete with Google and impact the volume of internet traffic looking for news, sports scores, and other pertinent information.
OpenAI, a San Francisco-based company, announced on October 31 that it would initially roll out a search function to ChatGPT’s premium members before extending it to all ChatGPT users. In July, OpenAI launched SearchGPT, the search engine, into beta testing.
OpenAI stated in a blog post that news partners, including News Corp. and The Associated Press, assisted in the development of its new search engine. It will contain links to news articles and blog entries, among other sources. Users can now view links to articles or blog posts in chats by clicking the “Sources” icon beneath the response, which opens a sidebar. The Associated Press, Reuters, Axel Springer, Condé Nast, Hearst, Dotdash Meredith, the Financial Times, News Corp., Le Monde, The Atlantic, Time, and Vox Media are among the news partners that OpenAI claimed to have worked with.
OpenAI Search Engine: Why Are Google, Microsoft Investors Concerned?
As the most popular search engine, Google may be impacted by the publication. Alphabet investors have been worried that OpenAI would overtake Google in search by providing customers with additional methods to look for information online since the release of ChatGPT in November 2022. Additionally, the move makes OpenAI a more serious rival to Microsoft and its companies. Despite Microsoft’s over $14 billion investment in OpenAI, OpenAI’s solutions directly compete with Microsoft’s AI and search technologies, including Bing and Copilot. AMA In response to a user inquiry on Thursday regarding whether Bing was utilized as the search engine behind the scenes by ChatGPT search, Srinivas Narayanan, engineering vice president at OpenAI, wrote, “We use a set of services and Bing is an essential one.” Users can ask follow-up questions “much like you would in a conversation” and “search in a more natural, intuitive way,” according to OpenAI. Partly powered by content from news industry partners and third-party search providers, the search model is an improved version of OpenAI’s most potent AI model to date, GPT-4o.
ChatGPT Search Engine: Available for Free In ‘Coming Months’
According to an OpenAI blog post, ChatGPT search will be available to all ChatGPT Plus and Team users as well as those on SearchGPT’s waitlist as of Thursday. According to OpenAI, customers of ChatGPT’s free edition will be able to access the product “over the next months,” while ChatGPT Enterprise and Edu users will have access in the upcoming weeks.
ChatGPT Search Engine: How Was it Developed?
With AI-generated textual summaries now often showing up at the top of search results, Google completely redesigned its search engine in May. In order to save users from having to click on a link and go to another website in order to obtain further information, the summaries are designed to provide a prompt response to their search query. A year of testing with a limited number of users preceded Google’s redesign, but usage still produced falsehoods highlighting the dangers of handing over information search to AI chatbots who are prone to making mistakes known as hallucinations.
Some news media organizations are concerned about the shift made by AI businesses to have their chatbots present news that has been gathered by professional journalists. A number of news organizations, including the New York Times, have filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against OpenAI and its business partner Microsoft. Earlier in October, News Corp, the publisher of the Wall Street Journal and New York Post, filed a lawsuit against Perplexity, another AI search engine.
OpenAI Business, Funding
Including the $6.6 billion it raised from a wide range of Big Tech businesses and investment firms, OpenAI closed its most recent funding round earlier this month at a valuation of $157 billion. Its total liquidity now exceeds $10 billion after receiving a $4 billion revolving line of credit. According to a person familiar with the matter, CNBC revealed in September that OpenAI anticipates almost $5 billion in losses on $3.7 billion in revenue this year.
A number of management departures and OpenAI’s impending move to a for-profit organization have caused significant controversy in recent months. The company’s “safety culture and protocols have taken a backseat to shiny products,” according to a resignation letter posted on X by Jan Leike, a former safety team head.
