OpenAI confronts Google Search with the release of SearchGPT for global users

OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, is venturing into Google’s territory by introducing a new search tool named SearchGPT, positioned as an alternative to Google Search.

Both OpenAI and Google are leading players in the AI sector, with their respective offerings, ChatGPT and Gemini, aiming to attract more users.

During the announcement of this new tool, OpenAI’s CEO Sam Altman expressed the company’s goal to enhance the search experience beyond its current state.

“We think there is room to make search much better than it is today. We are launching a new prototype called SearchGPT. We will learn from the prototype, make it better, and then integrate the tech into ChatGPT to make it real-time and maximally helpful,” Altman said in a post on X.

Competition with Microsoft’s Bing

On Thursday, the introduction of SearchGPT positioned the AI powerhouse in direct rivalry with Microsoft’s Bing search, its primary investor, as well as with new contenders like Perplexity, an AI chatbot focused on search that is supported by Jeff Bezos and Nvidia.

OpenAI announced that it has begun accepting sign-ups for this new tool, which is still in the prototype phase and being evaluated by a limited number of users and publishers.

Searching for information online can often be laborious, typically requiring several attempts to yield relevant results. OpenAI expressed on its website that by improving the conversational features of their models with real-time web data, they aim to make it quicker and simpler for users to find what they need. They encouraged individuals to join the waitlist for access to this tool.

Google’s search dominance

As of June, data from Statcounter reveals that Google holds a commanding 91.05% share of the search engine market.

In contrast, Microsoft’s Bing has a mere 3.74% market share, while Yandex and Yahoo Search represent 1.44% and 1.26%, respectively.

Since the debut of ChatGPT in November 2022, leading search engines have been working to incorporate AI into their platforms.

Microsoft has leveraged its early investment in OpenAI technology for Bing, whereas Google introduced AI-driven summaries to the public during its developer conference in May.

Additionally, the launch of OpenAI’s SearchGPT coincided with Google’s announcement of an upgrade to its free-tier service, now known as Gemini 1.5 Flash, aimed at providing faster and more useful responses.

Google stated that users would experience overall enhancements in quality and response time with Gemini 1.5 Flash, particularly noting improvements in reasoning abilities and image comprehension.

“And just like we greatly expanded the context window of Gemini Advanced, we’re quadrupling Gemini’s to 32K tokens. That means you can have longer back-and-forth conversations and ask Gemini more complex questions — all free of charge,” the company stated in an announcement on Thursday.

What you should know

OpenAI and Google are leading the charge in the AI revolution, each striving to capture a bigger portion of the market with their chatbots, ChatGPT and Gemini (previously called Bard).

Meanwhile, Elon Musk’s xAI is making significant strides to compete for market share against these giants. To draw more users to its AI tool, Grok, xAI has recently declared that all Premium subscribers on its social media platform X will now have automatic access.