OpenAI’s ChatGPT search engine is now live for Plus and Team users, with the company promising it blends the best of natural language with web search.

News broke in late July that OpenAI was working on its own search engine, called SearchGPT, using AI to challenge Google’s core business. The company says it took the feedback it received from beta testers and has rolled the SearchGPT experience into ChatGPT.

Plus and Team users will see a search icon in their ChatGPT dialog boxes, whether on using it via the web, desktop, or mobile app. While users can manually click the search button, ChatGPT will choose to respond via the method it deems best by default.

Getting useful answers on the web can take a lot of effort. It often requires multiple searches and digging through links to find quality sources and the right information for you.

Now, chat can get you to a better answer: Ask a question in a more natural, conversational way, and ChatGPT can choose to respond with information from the web. Go deeper with follow-up questions, and ChatGPT will consider the full context of your chat to get a better answer for you.

As part of ChatGPT’s search results, OpenAI has partnered with various data and news providers to provide more visually appealing results for some categories, such as maps, news, sports, stocks, and weather.

Continuing its efforts to improve the reliability and credibility of AI results, ChatGPT will now provide sources for where it is getting its information from, making it much easier to verify the accuracy of the results.

Chats now include links to sources, such as news articles and blog posts, giving you a way to learn more. Click the Sources button below the response to open a sidebar with the references.

ChatGPT search connects people with original, high-quality content from the web and makes it part of their conversation. By integrating search with a chat interface, users can engage with information in a new way, while content owners gain new opportunities to reach a broader audience. We hope to help users discover publishers and websites, while bringing more choice to search.

“We are convinced that AI search will be, in a near future and for the next generations, a primary way to access information, and partnering with OpenAI positions Le Monde at the forefront of this shift,” Louis Dreyfus, CEO & Publisher of Le Monde. “It allows us to test innovations at an early stage while safeguarding journalism’s core values and integrity.”

“As AI reshapes the media landscape, Axel Springer’s partnership with OpenAI opens up tremendous opportunities for innovative advancements,” said Mathias Sanchez, SVP Global Strategic Partnerships Axel Springer SE. “Together, we’re driving new business models that ensure journalism remains both trustworthy and profitable.”

The company says it will continue to improve ChatGPT search, including bringing the experience to Advanced Voice and canvas.

The search model is a fine-tuned version of GPT-4o, post-trained using novel synthetic data generation techniques, including distilling outputs from OpenAI o1-preview. ChatGPT search leverages third-party search providers, as well as content provided directly by our partners, to provide the information users are looking for. Learn more here⁠(opens in a new window).

Thanks to feedback from the SearchGPT prototype, we brought the best of the SearchGPT experience into ChatGPT. We plan to keep improving search, particularly in areas like shopping and travel, and leverage the reasoning capabilities of the OpenAI o1 series to do deeper research. We also plan to bring our new search experience to Advanced Voice and canvas, as well as to Free and logged out users in the future.

Upending the Search Market

Industry experts believe ChatGPT search represents the greatest threat Google has ever faced, and will fundamentally change how users interact with online information.

“This is huge news in the search world. ChatGPT is probably best positioned amongst all competitors to upset Google’s dominance in search, and aspects of the new interface, such as ‘visual answers,’ appear to be innovative and potentially disruptive,” Damian Rollison, SOCi’s director of market insights, said in a statement to WPN. “However, of all areas for ChatGPT to compete with Google, search is the one where Google’s power as an incumbent with a 26-year head start is strongest.

“The early results of Bing search integrated into ChatGPT have been shaky, and the incredibly complex requirements of maintaining a world-class search platform tap into areas of expertise where OpenAI has yet to demonstrate its capabilities,” Rollison continued. “Probably, the success of SearchGPT will hinge on its bringing a different approach to the search experience that users find truly refreshing and new.”

Alon Yamin, co-founder and CEO of Copyleaks, says ChatGPT search underscores the need for the industry to continue to develop ways to authenticate content and provide a way to differentiate between human and AI-generated content.

“OpenAI’s integration of real-time search into ChatGPT marks yet another significant shift in how we interact with online information in the age of AI,” Yamin explained in a statement to WPN. “In July, OpenAI shared that they were prototyping a search feature that could compete with Google, Microsoft, and Perplexity, so it was only a matter of time before it arrived on the market. Undoubtedly, the new search capabilities will impact traditional search engines. Yet, it remains to be seen how it will affect the SEO landscape, which Google has been king of for so long, and how organizations and marketing teams will have to pivot in response to those changes.

“It also underscores a crucial point long emphasized at Copyleaks- the growing importance of content authenticity and verification in an AI-powered world,” Yamin added. “As AI tools become more sophisticated and part of our day-to-day lives, distinguishing between AI-generated and human-created content, properly attributing original sources or authors, and empowering overall originality becomes even more critical. This is precisely where the focus needs to remain – providing robust content integrity solutions that are evolving alongside the demands of the AI landscape.”

Thanks to its recent court loss in its antitrust trial, Google’s position is weaker than it ever has been. OpenAI may have taken the first step toward ending the search giant’s dominance.