Well, the time has finally come! After months of waiting and speculation, the rumored ChatGPT search feature has finally landed. With that, OpenAI is properly set to take on Google.
We first got news about this feature a few months ago, and people who use ChatGPT often for information will love this feature. If you’re a free user, then we have some bad news. The ChatGPT Search feature is only for ChatGPT Plus users for the moment. OpenAI will make this functionality available for its free and Enterprise users over the next couple of weeks. So, you’ll need to wait a bit if you want to use this feature.
ChatGPT now has a search feature
Since the beginning of this whole AI explosion, one of the things that companies fantasized about was the AI-powered search engine. The AI search engine already exists, thanks to Perplexity. Well, OpenAI’s search engine is similar to that one.
When you search for something, you’ll see an AI-generated explanation of what you searched for. This section will take up most of the screen. That’s not very different from what we’ve seen so far. However, off to the right side, you’ll see a Citations section. This will house the sources where ChatGPT got its information. In the image provided by The Verge, we see a list of five sources listed to the side. We’re not sure if the list includes more sources off-screen.
Five sources is not a bad amount, and they’re shown pretty prominently. ChatGPT isn’t hiding them behind a button. This shows that the company is thinking about the sources it’s surfacing.
In the screenshot, we see image results as well. This is good, as it shows that ChatGPT is trying to be a proper search engine.
Another way this feature is great is that ChatGPt can now access current events. Before, if you used the chatbot, you’d have to deal with a knowledge cut-off date. For example, when ChatGPT first launched, the model it used was more than a year out of date. However, if you’re using ChatGPT for research, you’ll have access to more modern events.
Should Google be worried? Probably not yet. However, with ChatGPT’s massive user base, it may only be a matter of time.
