OpenAI today introduced a search engine developed in-house for its ChatGPT chatbot service.

This decision is not unexpected. At the end of July, OpenAI made his debut a standalone search engine called SearchGPT that he described as a “temporary prototype.” The company said its goal with the project was to gather user feedback before integrating key features of the service into ChatGPT.

ChatGPT Search, as the chatbot’s new built-in search engine is called, will launch automatically in response to certain queries. The feature can also be activated manually using a new button below the ChatGPT dialog box. Additionally, users can set it as their browser’s default search engine and enter queries via the URL bar.

The feature works similarly to other AI-based search tools, such as Google LLC’s AI Insights. When a user enters a query, ChatGPT Search does not return a list of web page links but rather answers the question directly in a natural language format. The length of responses varies from a few sentences to several paragraphs.

Depending on the query, ChatGPT Search may add additional elements to its response. When a user asks about a company’s stock price, the feature can display a chart that visualizes how the stock’s value has changed over the past few days. ChatGPT also offers dedicated quick response formats for several other query categories, including weather, sports, news, and maps.

A “Sources” button below each AI-generated response allows users to view the web pages from which ChatGPT Search has collected information. Citations appear in a sidebar next to the query results.

Under the hood, ChatGPT Search runs on a customized version of OpenAI’s large GPT-4o language model. The company claims to have customized the model using synthetic data or AI-generated training data. This information was created using a machine learning technique called model distillation.

Model distillation allows developers to transfer knowledge between LLMs. OpenAI used this method to equip the version of GPT-4o that powers ChatGPT Search with insights from o1-preview, a model optimized for reasoning. made his debut in September. Sharing information between LLMs in this way helps to improve the quality of their responses.

OpenAI knowledge base entry for ChatGPT Search says the feature can “share unlinked search queries with third-party search providers such as Bing” when processing queries. This suggests that the feature relies on Bing to answer certain user questions. Bing developer Microsoft Corp. has invested more than $13 billion in OpenAI over the past few years.

ChatGPT Search is available to Plus and Team subscription tier users of the chatbot at launch. OpenAI will deploy it on the other two paid plans, Edu and Enterprise, in a few weeks. Free version users will have access to the tool in the coming months.

OpenAI’s plans for ChatGPT Search also include feature additions. The company intends to add a feature that will use the reasoning-optimized o1 LLM series to help users perform research. Additionally, OpenAI will allow ChatGPT Search to better process shopping and travel queries.

“Early results from Bing search integrated with ChatGPT have been fragile, and the incredibly complex requirements of maintaining a world-class search platform tap into areas of expertise where OpenAI has yet to demonstrate its capabilities ” said Damian Rollison, Market Manager. perspectives at marketing technology company SoCi. “SearchGPT’s success will likely depend on its different approach to the search experience that users will find truly refreshing and new.”

Image: OpenAI