OpenAI's new search engine sets off sparks of change

Driving the news: OpenAI on Thursday announced it has put a search engine directly inside the ChatGPT apps and website.

• It's available now for individual and team subscribers and coming soon for educational and large business customers — and, after that, to users of the free ChatGPT product as well.

The big picture: ChatGPT's entry into search is part of a broader shift as tech giants and startups expect users to seek information from chatbots that summarize and explain what they find.

• The field has seen new entrants like Perplexity, as well as efforts by incumbents, such as Google's addition of AI overviews to many of its search results.

"It gives people answers faster, but it gives people answers tailored to them instead of pages of links," AJ Ghergich, a global VP at search engine optimization firm Botify, told Axios.

• Ghergich compared Google and ChatGPT by asking each to recommend the best scary Stephen King novel. Both services made reasonable suggestions, he said.
• But with ChatGPT, he was able to follow up and ask the service for a personalized recommendation based on what the AI system knew about him. It told him to read "The Shining."

How it works: OpenAI's new search tool is built directly into ChatGPT.com, as well as the mobile and desktop ChatGPT apps.

• Users can choose to query the search engine directly by clicking on a globe icon. ChatGPT itself will also route queries to the search engine that it determines could benefit from real-time information.
• The answers look like other ChatGPT responses, but can include new types of results, including maps, stock charts and additional images.
• The company said it was not including advertising, and does not have plans to do so.

Yes, but: Plenty of consumer tech products have begun ad-free only to start incorporating them once serious revenue comes into view.

• Ghergich says he expects consumers will actually drive some of the demand, as they seek out the chance to take action on chatbot recommendations.
• "It will weirdly come in because the consumer wants it," he said of sponsored links. "They will want to transact. You will need to connect the pipes."

Between the lines: That could be good news for consumers, but it would introduce massive new uncertainty for anyone who does business over the internet.

• Ghergich said this moment resembles the early 2000s, when Google supplanted Yahoo and the market shifted from a directory-driven approach to a search-based one.
• Businesses want to understand how such a new system works, what data to share and what control they have over the output.
• "It's literally the same questions that were asked, word for word," during previous transitions, he said.

Ghergich's advice to companies is to remember that consumers are mostly looking for the same things they were before. They just have a new means to find it and are more informed by the time they are ready to purchase.

• He likened it to what has happened to the car-buying business. "That kind of car-shopping experience is going to come to most of commerce," he said.

Content publishers, on the other hand, may be in a bigger bind.

• OpenAI said it uses a variety of news sources to answer search queries, including a mix of publishers with whom it has signed deals as well as others, so long as they have not opted out of being a part of their search effort.
• ChatGPT search citations offer direct links. But its results still may not deliver the kind of traffic to publishers that was generated by search engines — which themselves significantly disrupted the news business.
• "Publishers have been getting the short end of the advertising stick for years," Ghergich said.

Editor's note: This story was updated to correct the spelling of Stephen King's name.