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Amid rumors about a search engine coming to ChatGPT, OpenAI today said it will demo updates for its AI chatbot and GPT-4 on Monday. But CEO Sam Altman chimed it to say the event will not include the launch of GPT-5 or a search engine. Instead he promised "some new stuff we think people will love [that] feels like magic to me."
GPT-5 is the next iteration of OpenAI's model; it's on the agenda for 2024, but we don't know when it will drop. Until then, news about the company this week shifted to reports of an OpenAI search engine in ChatGPT that would compete against Google.
The Information first reported that OpenAI was working on a search product in February. Fast forward to this week, when a user on X discovered new URL—search.chatgpt.com—in OpenAI's certificate logs. The site currently displays an error message, though it appears to have been programmed by the owner of the URL and is not a typical 404 served up by the browser. The URL briefly rerouted to chatgpt.com over the weekend, according to Blomberg.
Reuters then reported that we'd get a look at the search product on Monday, though OpenAI appears to have thrown cold water on that.
Whatever OpenAI has on the agenda, it's happening one day before Google opens its annual I/O developer conference, where its own Gemini AI is likely to feature prominently. OpenAI will live stream its "spring updates" event on its website and YouTube at 10 a.m. PT on Monday, May 13.
An Ad-Free, Conversational Version of Google?
If we do get an OpenAI search engine, how would it differ from what ChatGPT already does?
The free version of ChatGPT is not connected to the web, so it can't link to cited sources in its responses. It also does not have data past January 2022, as it pulls from a fixed body of data. ChatGPT Plus overcomes both these issues, but it costs $20 per month. In March, OpenAI made links more prominent for paid users.
Perhaps a search product would be free and search the web, just like Google, but with the more humanlike, conversational-style chatbots bring to the table.
OpenAI does not appear eager to compete with Google in the ad space. "Today, we live in an attention economy built for advertisers over users and quantity over quality," it said in a May 7 blog post. "Our ambition is to use AI to change this: to empower creators and publishers and to enhance the user experience."
The company has been pursuing licensing deals with publishers and other content providers, including The Financial Times and Stack Overflow, though developers at the latter are not thrilled by the idea. Those deals reference ChatGPT linking back to the original site for more information and come as OpenAI is battling The New York Times in court for using the paper's content to feed ChatGPT without permission or compensation.
OpenAI's rumored search engine may also compete with rivaI AI chatbots. ChatGPT has faced growing competition from services like Claude and Perplexity.AI. Google also continues to refine its Gemini chatbot while working on AI-powered search results for Google.com known as the Search Generative Experience (GSE).