In the early hours of July 26, Beijing time, OpenAI released a temporary prototype of a new AI search function called "SearchGPT".
Sam Altman, the founder of OpenAI, stated on X that OpenAI will learn from and improve this prototype product before integrating the technology into ChatGPT, making it real-time and maximally effective.
Currently, the product has opened a waitlist for small-scale testing. OpenAI spokesperson Kayla Wood mentioned that SearchGPT's AI capabilities come from GPT-4, and there are only 10,000 test slots available.
According to the preview released by OpenAI, users can input questions in the main interface of SearchGPT to search for organized, summarized, and structurally presented answers.
OpenAI emphasized that SearchGPT can provide quick, timely answers with clear relevant sources. Users can also ask follow-up questions, just like talking to a person, with each query building shared context.
The release of SearchGPT also mentioned attention to the ecosystem of publishers and creators. OpenAI stated that the company is committed to building a thriving ecosystem of publishers and creators, aiming to highlight citations and links to publishers in searches.
AI search is one of the important sub-tracks of AIGC. Data from the consulting firm Extraordinary Research shows that in March 2024, AI search products accounted for 24.21% of global visits, becoming the second-largest AIGC sub-track after chatbots.
Google remains the absolute giant in the traditional search engine market. Data from the monitoring platform Statcounter shows that in April 2024, Google maintained over 90% market share in global search.
Other challengers include Perplexity. According to statistics from the Aicpb platform, in April 2024, Perplexity had 73.53 million visits in the AI search engine category, second only to Bing.
The biggest threat posed by the emergence of AI search is that it could completely overturn the business model on which traditional search engines rely. Users can directly retrieve the answers they want through AI search, ignoring other long-tail information.
Google is also making changes in an attempt to keep up with this trend. At the annual I/O developers conference in May, Google prominently announced the official introduction of AI features into its core search business, launching a function called "AI Overviews". However, this feature was criticized by many internet users as soon as it went live.
AI search is undoubtedly a track where imagination and challenges coexist. However, considering that Sora, released by OpenAI at the beginning of the year, has not yet been launched, it remains unknown when SearchGPT will be officially available to the public.