ALBAWABA - OpenAI has made the announcement of its highly anticipated entrance into the search market called SearchGPT, an artificial intelligence-powered search engine that provides real-time access to information all over the internet with sources. Potentially placing OpenAI into a sector that has been dominated by Google for so long.
"What are you looking for?" appears in a huge textbox at the top of the search engine while SearchGPT attempts to arrange and make more sense of the results rather than just providing a bare list of links to them. The technology is currently being tested with a select number of users, with OpenAI saying it ultimately intends to incorporate it into its ChatGPT chatbot.
Earlier in May, Google introduced AI Overview to a small group of users, enabling them to see a summary of search results at the top of Google Search—a move that CEO Sundar Pichai described as the largest shift in search in 25 years.
However, Search GPT is the beginning of what may grow to be a serious challenge to Google, which has hurriedly integrated AI technologies like Gemini into its search engine out of concern that customers will swarm to rival services that provide the capabilities first, as The Verge notes.
Following the news, Alphabet, the parent company of Google, saw its shares drop 3%, hitting a new 52-week low of $167.32 on Thursday.
According to OpenAI, publishers will have the ability to "manage how they appear" in search results, noting that publishers will have the option of opting out of having their material used to train OpenAI's models whilst staying visible in search results.
Nicholas Thompson, CEO of The Atlantic, commented on the announcement “AI search is going to become one of the key ways that people navigate the internet, and it's crucial, in these early days, that the technology is built in a way that values, respects, and protects journalism and publishers.”
