ChatGPT Plus subscribers, Team subscribers, and SearchGPT waitlist members can use OpenAI’s generative search engine starting today, the AI ​​giant announced October 31.

This could be a Halloween scare for Google Search, as OpenAI aims directly to push users away from Google’s algorithm. OpenAI created a Chrome extension to set ChatGPT search as the browser’s default search engine. ChatGPT search also competes with Microsoft’s Bing Chat in the Bing search engine.

ChatGPT search will open to enterprise and education users “in the coming weeks.” OpenAI said in a blog post. Free tier users will see the new feature “in the coming months.”

What is ChatGPT Search?

OpenAI’s ChatGPT search is an AI generative search function that returns text written by a large language model and links to external websites. It runs on a refined version of GPT-4o in concert with some OpenAI o1-preview releases.

OpenAI first introduced ChatGPT search as SearchGPT in preview in July.

OpenAI wants to provide a “better answer” than its competitors

Google search ranks results based on their initiatives to highlight “people first” content. However, the results are not always relevant or useful. In recent years, it has become more difficult to find older content or content not intended to directly answer a question.

OpenAI wants to eliminate “link digging” by using the context of natural-sounding conversations a ChatGPT user might have with the AI.

“Go deeper with follow-up questions, and ChatGPT will take into account the full context of your discussion to get a better answer for you,” OpenAI wrote.

Like Google’s AI previews, ChatGPT search will display the sources of its information in a sidebar in the right column.

ChatGPT search offers weather, stocks and sports scores. OpenAI currently has no plans to incorporate advertisements.

SEE: Google opened its AI Research Assistant Overviews to other countries at the end of October.

Use of news media in AI research findings is controversial

OpenAI has partnered with news media outlets including the Associated Press, Reuters, The Atlantic and Time. According to the Washington PostChatGPT search will lead election issues to well-established news sites like the Associated Press and Reuters.

Unaffiliated sites can control whether or not they appear in ChatGPT search results by allowing or disabling OpenAI’s OAI-SearchBot in their robots.txt file.

Some newspapers, including the New York Times, have continued OpenAI for copyright infringement of their content. Meanwhile, other media groups view the alliance with OpenAI as a valuable business strategy in the era of generative AI proliferation.

“ChatGPT research promises to better highlight and attribute information from trusted news sources, benefiting the public while expanding the reach of publishers like us who produce quality journalism,” said Vox Media President , Pam Wasserstein, in the OpenAI blog.