Q: AI keeps making headlines, and I certainly hear from my younger colleagues that “large language models” are the future. What about for search? Could smart AI search systems replace Google Search after so many years of dominating the space?
A: That’s a very timely question and not only can AI take over search, it’s been slowly doing so for years now. In fact, Google’s been primarily powered by AI search algorithms for many years. It’s more overt now when you see AI summaries (powered by Google’s Gemini generative AI system).
While Google is running as fast as it can to keep up with the extraordinary pace of artificial intelligence improvements, it faces quite a few competitors who are more nimble and might just win this marathon.
You might have noticed that many people were relying on Perplexity for election results last week, for example. Perplexity is an LLM (large language model)-based generative AI system you can try for yourself at perplexity.ai, but it also did a very good job with voting and election information. It even had a slick ballot information area where you could ask questions about your own local ballot initiatives, candidates, and proposals.
On the search side, few programs are being more closely watched than OpenAI’s ChatGPT variant known as SearchGPT. ChatGPT is already a leader in generative AI and is both fun and fascinating to interact with. Its search system is a radical leap forward in helping people find answers rather than links to pages that might or might not be relevant.
For example, a Google search on “best place to find an organic veggie pizza in Boulder” will offer up the usual sponsored matches and Yelp pages. That same query to SearchGPT is more useful, offering Barchetta, Zeal, and Modern Market, explaining why each is a good match.
Want to get their street addresses? Just ask “what are their addresses?” without any further context and it’ll know what you mean and deliver a clean, easy to read result.
Where this is going to get really interesting is that these tools have a greater and deeper contextual memory. Imagine teaching your search engine that you prefer organic food, like to have a beer with your meals, and tend to eat late, then have that search engine automatically factor that in. Or having it access your calendar and suggest places that are near your next appointment without you having to ask explicitly.
I have been moving more and more to using ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, and SearchGPT for my Web searches and rarely utilize Google anymore. It’s so pleasant to have a readable answer in response to a query, rather a game changer after so many years of wading through “the pages that might match your query.”
You can access SearchGPT at ChatGPT.com/search or just use ChatGPT at ChatGPT.com. Perplexity is at perplexity.ai and Microsoft Copilot is at copilot.microsoft.com
Dave Taylor has been involved with the online world since the beginning of the Internet. He runs the popular AskDaveTaylor.com tech Q&A site and invites you to subscribe to his weekly email newsletter at AskDaveTaylor.com/subscribe/ You can also find his entertaining gadget reviews on YouTube at YouTube.com/AskDaveTaylor.