OpenAI has taken a significant step forward in the realm of conversational AI with the introduction of ChatGPT Search, a groundbreaking new feature that seamlessly integrates web search functionality into the popular chatbot, ChatGPT. This innovative feature allows users to access fast, timely answers to their natural language queries, complete with links to relevant web sources.
When engaging with ChatGPT, the bot will automatically search the web to provide the most accurate and up-to-date information. However, users also have the option to manually override the bot’s decision-making by tapping a new web search icon below the input bar. This feature leverages OpenAI’s advanced technology to scour the web for original, high-quality content from trusted sources, including news media outlets and data providers like AccuWeather.
The data that ChatGPT Search provides encompasses a wide range of topics, including weather, stocks, sports, news, and maps. To ensure the accuracy and reliability of the information, each ChatGPT Search reply includes a Sources button, which, when clicked, opens a sidebar with references and links to the underlying sources.
According to OpenAI, ChatGPT Search utilizes a fine-tuned version of GPT-4o, a cutting-edge AI model that has been post-trained using novel synthetic data generation techniques. This includes distilling outputs from the company’s OpenAI o1-preview model, which is significantly slower than GPT-4o. By leveraging this approach, OpenAI aims to harness the reasoning skills of the o1-preview model while minimizing its computational overhead.
The development of ChatGPT Search was informed by feedback from the SearchGPT test run, which allowed OpenAI to refine the feature and bring the best of the SearchGPT experience into ChatGPT. The new feature is now available to ChatGPT Plus and Team subscribers, with plans to roll it out to Enterprise and Edu users in the next few weeks and eventually to free users in the coming months.
