US-based artificial intelligence firm OpenAI has launched a new ChatGPT real-time web search capability, powered by AI, in a move that heats up the ongoing competition between tech giants as they wrestle to harness AI in ways that outsmart their rivals.
Integrated, automatic and manual
Showcased at a pre-launch demo by OpenAI’s ChatGPT search lead, Adam Fry, the real-time search feature builds on previous models that had trained on a restricted time period. Tested on 10,000 users since July and now available to subscribers and waitlist users, the function will also be coming soon to unpaid, enterprise, and education accounts.
With a Chrome extension to make ChatGPT the default search engine, users will find the underlying search model is a fine-tuned version of GPT-4o but the system draws on “a mix of search technologies,” including Microsoft’s Bing, Fry said. Designed to be integrated into ChatGPT’s existing interface, web searches and results are triggered “automatically” by queries or manually triggered by web searches.
Rival firms shaken
In an increasingly crowded market, Meta is also exploring its own AI search bot, while Microsoft, an investor in OpenAI, has a rival product in Microsoft Copilot. Likewise, Google with Gemini already offers real-time web access during AI interactions. But shareholders at Google’s parent company Alphabet have been bracing for OpenAI’s explosion onto the live search scene and the stockmarket responded accordingly, shaking Alphabet shares down by 1% following the OpenAI announcement.
Having trained on data from between 2021 and 2023, OpenAI ChatGPT search will now benefit from live updates to its knowledge base. And company spokesperson Niko Felix emphasised that there is a difference between updating live search data and updating training data. The company will continue to do both, he said, to “ensure our users always have access to the latest advancements”.
Legal challenges and partnerships
AI firms are facing numerous legal challenges to the way their systems have harvested and learned to copy information and styles, including from powerful publishers and content providers such as the New York Times and News Corp. And questions are being raised about so-called “opt-out” clauses, where publishers can deny OpenAI access to their content: what are the implications for equal exposure for firms who refuse to play ball?
But the outlook seems positive for now. OpenAI has achieved a series of partnerships with firms ranging from Axel Springer, Condé Nast, and Hearst, to – yes, again – News Corp, over the last year and is “working very, very closely with all of those partners to understand how to use that content really responsibly and help drive great outcomes for publisher partners as well,” Fry said.