OpenAI could challenge Google and Perplexity with AI-powered search: Report

OpenAI, already one of the hottest names in the hot field of artificial intelligence, is developing an AI-based search engine that could challenge tech giant Google and web-savvy AI tool Perplexity.

Rumors and insider leaks are shaping up to be an exciting battle over the future of information seeking online. The first hints appeared in February. information OpenAI reports that it is developing a search app targeting Google’s core competencies.

If true, giving ChatGPT access to the web using Bing would be a significant departure from the company’s current agreement with Microsoft. Bing uses Search Augmented Generation (RAG) to fold data from web searches into GPT-4 chatbot responses to improve answers, giving it an edge on the currency of information.

Recently, a leaker known in AI circles under the pseudonym Jimmy Apples claimed that OpenAI could soon announce a new search engine. Citing numerous new domain name records coming from chatgpt.com, he hypothesized that the Mountain View, California-based company was preparing to host an event to showcase this new feature.

“The OpenAI event at 10am on May 9th may not be a model launch, but a search engine announcement,” he tweeted. “I don’t think they can help themselves to get on stage at Google I/O” — the annual developer conference scheduled to kick off Tuesday.

Ashutosh Shrivastava, another Twitter user active in the AI ​​community, looked into it further, claiming that OpenAI is very active through a new subdomain called search.chatgpt.com.

“OpenAI’s recent SSL certificate logs revealed something interesting: the domain (search-dot-chatgpt-dot-com) may indicate that OpenAI is developing a search feature,” he said.

A standard WHOIS domain registry search will determine if the subdomain exists, but attempts to access that subdomain will fail.

Jimmy Apples also said that OpenAI may test more features or AI models.

“We’ve had at least 50 new asynchronous subdomains since April 24th,” he tweeted, speculating that the new ChatGPT search engine could provide faster responses than native chatbots and provide powerful summary features.

Web Search and AI

Until the explosion of consumer AI tools like ChatGPT, Google was the king of search, providing the primary way people find information online. But that central position is being challenged as users become more comfortable asking chatbots for answers than performing Google searches.

For some, the change isn’t coming fast enough as Google search results become increasingly crowded with paid placements and sites that exist solely to drive search traffic.

On the other hand, the currency and completeness of the information provided by AI models is often a weakness of chatbots, as well as devices that aim to make smartphones obsolete. Two notable AI devices released last month, the Humane AI Finn and the Rabbit R1, exposed the limits of this overhyped approach to ubiquitous computing.

Some companies are already combining AI and search. Perplexity is an AI-based search engine that has made a name for itself in the AI ​​space and attracted major investments from Nvidia and Jeff Bezos. Recently, Microsoft, a major investor in OpenAI, banned its employees from using Perplexity for security reasons. Although its scope is modest compared to tools from OpenAI, Google, and Microsoft, Perplexity is currently enjoying historic levels of interest, according to Google Trends.

If OpenAI were to develop a native GPT-based search engine, it would be competing against Google Search, which has essentially owned important aspects of the Internet since its launch in 1998. AI-based search engine.

Marketing platform Semrush estimates that 5.9 million Google searches are performed every minute, up to 8.5 billion searches per day, or 3.1 trillion searches per year. Launched only 17 months ago, ChatGPT currently has approximately 1.6 billion monthly visitors, while Perplexity has 10 million monthly users.

In a recent podcast with OpenAI chief Lex Fridman, Sam Altman hinted at OpenAI’s interest in reinventing web search.

“The intersection of LLM and search is something I don’t think anyone has cracked the code yet,” he said. “I want to do that. “I think that would be good.”

To date, OpenAI has made no official announcement regarding its search engine development, and OpenAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment. decryption. However, it seems more likely that a new AI search engine will emerge based on its founder’s passion for space.