OpenAI is set to launch its AI-driven search product next Monday, as per two informed sources, intensifying its rivalry with the search engine giant Google.
Although subject to change, the announcement date has not been previously disclosed. Reports from Bloomberg and The Information have highlighted OpenAI, backed by Microsoft, working on a search product to potentially challenge Alphabet’s Google and Perplexity, a well-supported AI search startup.
OpenAI has chosen not to provide comments on the matter.
The timing of the announcement may precede Google’s annual I/O conference, which commences this week. At this conference, the tech behemoth is anticipated to reveal an array of AI-focused products.
The upcoming search product from OpenAI is an expansion of its flagship ChatGPT, empowering ChatGPT to extract information directly from the web, along with citations, Bloomberg reported. ChatGPT is OpenAI’s chatbot solution leveraging state-of-the-art AI models to generate human-like responses to text prompts.
Observers within the industry have long considered ChatGPT as an alternative for gathering online information, albeit encountering challenges in delivering accurate and real-time data from the web. Previously, OpenAI integrated it with Microsoft’s Bing for paid subscribers. Meanwhile, Google has introduced generative AI features for its own search engine.
Startup Perplexity, valued at $1 billion and founded by a former OpenAI researcher, has gained traction by offering an AI-native search interface that presents citations and images alongside text in its responses. According to a January blog post from the startup, it boasts 10 million monthly active users.
Previously, OpenAI’s ChatGPT product was hailed as the fastest application to reach 100 million monthly active users following its late 2022 launch. However, global traffic to ChatGPT’s website has fluctuated over the past year, only recently returning to its peak in May 2023, as reported by analytics firm Similarweb. The AI company faces mounting pressure to broaden its user base.
An earlier attempt to integrate updated and real-world information into ChatGPT, dubbed ChatGPT plugins, was retired in April, according to a help centre posting on OpenAI’s website.