OpenAI announced SearchGPT, a UI web browser to compete with Google

Google and Perplexity's rival will initially be available to a limited number of users as a prototype, aiming for integration with ChatGPT.

OpenAI has finally officially announced its entry into the realm of web browsers. Namely, they are preparing SearchGPT, which is basically a web browser that is powered by artificial intelligence and has "real-time" access to data on the Internet.

As we can see in the picture, it all starts with a text window in which the question is: "What are you looking for?". Instead of classic results in the form of links, SearchGPT tries to organize and logically present the results. OpenAI's example showed how the new browser UI finds information about music festivals, displays a brief description of the events, and adds links.

An example of SearchGPT query where the user searches for "music festivals in Boone, North Carolina" in August 2024. The model delivers real time information scraped from the web, including links to sources. — Source: OpenAI

SearchGPT is just a prototype for now. Kayla Wood, OpenAI's public relations representative, told The Verge that the UI web browser is powered by the GPT-4 family of models, and will only be available to 10,000 test users in the first phase. Wood adds that OpenAI works with third-party partners to build search results. Their goal is to integrate the browser directly into ChatGPT.

It's the start of what could become a significant threat to Google, which has rushed to add AI features to its search engine because it fears users will flock to rival products that offer the tools first. It also puts OpenAI in more direct competition against startup Perplexity, which bills itself as a "UI answer finder." Perplexity has recently come under fire for its UI summaries feature, which publishers have claimed directly steals their work.

OpenAI seems to have seen this happening and says it's taking a fundamentally different approach. In a blog post, the company emphasized that SearchGPT was developed in collaboration with various media partners, which include organizations such as the owners of The Wall Street Journal, The Associated Press and Vox Media, the parent company of The Verge. "Partners have provided valuable feedback and we continue to work closely together,” says Wood.

OpenAI's rapid progress has brought ChatGPT millions of users, but the company's costs are rising. It was announced this week that OpenAI's model-learning costs could reach $7 billion this year, with millions of users of the free version of ChatGPT only pushing that figure further. SearchGPT will initially be free to use, and since it appears to be ad-free at the moment, it's clear that OpenAI will need to provide monetization soon.