Google simply dominates the search space, just as other search engines do. Search is the company's backbone (and it spends billions of dollars to keep it that way). But the future of search is all but certain, and other companies want to get in on the action, including some of the biggest names in artificial intelligence.
As rumors suggest, OpenAI may be about to launch its own search engine. A Reddit user discovered an SSL certificate made for the "search.chatgpt.com" website (required for the website to use HTTPS). In fact, when you visit the URL, the site returns a "not found" message instead of a message that the domain is available. Android Authority discovered a tweet from the host of the Artificial Intelligence Podcast that also cryptically referenced the URL and the date of May 9th.
To be honest, that's all we know about the situation right now. In fact, OpenAI probably doesn't plan to do anything with search: maybe they just registered the domain name to own it, or they plan to use the URL for a different purpose. But search.chatgpt.com does sound like an address where a company wants you to search the internet, so let's consider what this might mean for the industry.
Challenge Google
Likewise, you can choose search engines: Bing, DuckDuckGo, or even Ecosia if you're interested in tree-planting searches. But when you think about who dominates the market, there's no denying it's Google.
So if OpenAI wants to get into this space, it really needs to go up against the king of search. It would be very difficult, but perhaps not impossible. While Google does have a near-monopoly on the search market, the quality of its search results hasn't been great lately. Low-quality posts, ads, and other irrelevant content have piled up on sites that actually answer the questions you're looking for. Sure, Google needs to make money, but what good is their service if all you get for your searches are ads and spam?
For its part, Google is making changes to its algorithm and spam policies to reduce such results. But there's an opportunity for another company to step in and provide a better experience. ChatGPT is probably one of the most well-known names in popular tech culture right now, so if OpenAI can combine that popularity with good search, they might have a chance.
But what would that experience be like? Well, I guess that’s not too far off from Google’s current AI search. When you search for something on Gemini-enabled Google today, you'll still get the same common search results we've known and loved for the past 25 years. However, at the top of the results, you'll see an "AI Answer" that takes the "best" sources from your results and distills them into an AI-generated summary.
Sometimes, this is very useful: instead of sifting through multiple websites, you get answers to your questions that include highlights of key ideas, images, takeaways, and sources that you can review to fact-check the AI. You should too, because AI is constantly making stuff up. But this applies to all aspects of AI, not just search, so if you want to start using an AI-generated search experience, it comes with the package.
How can ChatGPT Search be improved?
OpenAI needs to do two things here to improve their experience: They need to return more accurate, relevant results in searches and provide an improved AI summarizer. They might not take on Google overnight, but with this combination, it might be enough to get some tech folks interested in switching to Google.
The company does have the AI technology to provide a decent AI search summarizer, but I obviously can't speak to their search capabilities. What I can say is that OpenAI does not have the same financial incentives as Google, at least not yet. OpenAI doesn't need to prioritize SEO spam and ads because that's not where their funding comes from: they have paying subscribers and huge investors pumping money into them. From my perspective, they can focus on a search experience that delivers the most relevant results possible, rather than what the search engine thinks will drive the most profit. This might also help with AI summarization: if an AI extracts information from a source without considering how it might impact a company's bottom line, it might tend to select higher-quality references. This is a better product for you.
Of course, this is all speculation, based on a URL that OpenAI has yet to comment on publicly. May 9th may come and go and we may never hear about ChatGPT searches again. But it would be interesting if the company plans to take on Google here.
