OpenAI brought a new web search tool to ChatGPT

The news: ChatGPT can now search the web for up-to-date answers to a user’s queries. Previously, it was limited to generating answers from its training data and had limited web search capabilities. But now ChatGPT will automatically search the web in response to queries for recent information such as sports, stocks or today’s news, and can provide rich media results.

How to use it: The feature is available now for paid users of the chatbot, but OpenAI intends to make it available for free later, even when users are logged out. It also plans to combine search with its voice features.

The context: OpenAI is the latest tech company to launch an AI-powered search assistant, challenging similar tools from competitors such as Google, Microsoft and startup Perplexity. However, none of these tools are immune to the persistent tendency of AI language models to either make it up or get it wrong. Read the full story.

—Melissa Heikkilä and Mat Honan

AI search could break the web

—Benjamin Brooks is a fellow at Harvard’s Berkman Klein Center and studies the regulatory and legislative response to AI.

At its best, AI search can better infer a user’s intent, amplify quality content, and synthesize information from various sources. But if AI search becomes our primary portal to the web, it threatens to disrupt an already precarious digital economy.

Today, online content production depends on a fragile set of incentives tied to virtual foot traffic: ads, subscriptions, donations, sales, or brand exposure. By shielding the web behind an omniscient chatbot, AI search could deprive creators of the visits and “eyes” they need to survive. Here’s what the industry should do to make AI-based research sustainable.