ChatGPT Search: A New Challenger to Google's Search Dominance

Top 3 things you have to try with the new ChatGPT search

ChatGPT search (the new search engine built into ChatGPT that combines conversational AI with real-time information straight from the web) has recently launched for everybody who was signed up to the waitlist, or is a ChatGPT Plus subscriber. What's more, OpenAI recently leveled up ChatGPT search with a shiny new Google Chrome extension that means you can use it from the address bar. If you're already using Google Chrome, this makes for a much more useful way to find and gather up-to-date information while simultaneously giving you more personalized filters and a way to leverage that information for new and fun activities. Here are three practical and creative ways to take full advantage of ChatGPT search. Keeping up with every new trendy hobby, TV show, book, or game that I might enjoy is impossible. Add in the things my friends and family care about that I want to be aware of for conversation (and birthday present planning), and no one who isn't a teenager could keep up, even with hours on social media. ChatGPT search can handle that for me now. The AI can look up all of the latest news on subjects of interest to me and explain the latest buzz about those I am just curious about. As the AI adds more about me to its memory, it's going to be even better at curating those details. Asking "What's trending today?" will get me the new video game buzz for games I might like as well as the conclusion of the latest episode of Survivor, which I need to know to be able to keep up when going to dinner with my in-laws. I like looking up new recipes to try, especially if I don't want to go shopping and just use ingredients I have on hand. ChatGPT has always had the ability to come up with meal ideas, but the hallucinations and offline database meant I never really trusted what the AI wrote. Now, when I ask for specific kinds of dishes using ChatGPT search, like vegetarian meat sauce for pasta or the best methods for making gravlax, ChatGPT will not only remember previous requests and either reshare them or ask if I want new ideas, but it will actually use recipe websites to find them for me. Even if I ask for recipes based on random ingredients like sweet potatoes, quinoa, and a mixed bag of herbs, ChatGPT search will find options that fit my palette without me worrying that it will suggest rocks as an appetizer. Have you ever been hanging out with friends and felt like playing a trivia game without having to go to a bar? Well, ChatGPT search can use web search to pull together facts on everything from recent Oscar or Grammy award winners to the latest TikTok dance trends and act as your host for the night. I've found the right prompt can even get the AI to inject some humor into the game, while the web search keeps it from making up answers. Even if you're not playing a game, having your own personal fact-checker is nice. Sure, there's Google, but ChatGPT search means you don't have to open a new tab or click through multiple websites (assuming Google AI Overview doesn't have an answer). And, because it looks online, you don't have to worry nearly as much about the response being a hallucination.

ChatGPT has officially replaced Google Search for me - here's why

If you want to get answers to questions easily and quickly, ChatGPT Search may be for you. Most people rely on search engines, specifically Google, to find the most recent information about the world around them, and until now, that process has remained relatively efficient. However, artificial intelligence (AI) and natural language processing (NLP) can make finding what you need even easier. Also: The obvious reason why I'm not sold on smartphone AI features yet (and I'm not alone) Most of us have learned how to enter specific terms when searching for something on Google so that it can output the desired information. However, instead of entering a structured sentence with keywords into Google, you can enter a rambling sentence into ChatGPT Search and still get great results. Sound too good to be true? Here's everything you need to know. Last week, OpenAI unveiled ChatGPT Search, which lets users search the web directly within ChatGPT for timely, up-to-date information, complete with citations linked to sources. The tool can be called on manually or activated whenever a user prompt could benefit from web-based information. With ChatGPT Search, you can enter your sentence as your train of thought takes you, and the AI will understand the meaning of your query by leveraging its NLP capabilities. This means you can spend less time crafting a tailored search query but still get exactly what you want. Also: The best AI chatbots of 2024: ChatGPT, Copilot, and worthy alternatives Furthermore, the responses you get are conversational, reading the same way as if a human were talking to you. This makes the process effortless, allowing you to quickly get your results without clicking on many articles to find the specific part you need. If you want a traditional search engine result page, the answers include in-text citations and a button that says "sources", which, when clicked, will populate a long list of links on the right-hand bar. ChatGPT Search will also populate a couple of search result links underneath the answer so that you can easily visit links without even having to click anything. It is important to note sites that block OpenAI's web crawler will not appear in the search results, so you may be missing content from some of your favorite sites. However, OpenAI has several partnerships with reputable news outlets, including the Associated Press, Condé Nast, Dotdash Meredith, Financial Times, Hearst, Reuters, The Atlantic, Time, and Vox Media. Many other websites have also opted to be included in the ChatGPT source. I entered three search queries into Google and ChatGPT. The first query was straightforward: "When is Daylights saving time?" Since it is a straightforward question, both entities produced nearly identical results, showing the dates and a brief description: Even though there is no clear winner in this challenge, it is a good example of how well ChatGPT matches Google, which has been the most predominant search engine for over a decade. For the second question, I asked, "My friend was talking about a brunette singer-actress on Disney Channel who made a movie called Monte Carlo. Who was she talking about?" I tried keeping the search query as conversational as possible in this prompt: In these results, ChatGPT did a better job and immediately named Selena Gomez. The tool even restated my question in its answer and added helpful context. All Google could do was populate an excerpt from Selena Gomez's Wikipedia page. The excerpt doesn't even name her by first name; it's not until you look at the page name that the result refers to Selena. Lastly, I asked both searches a harder prompt to "plan a seven-day vacation to Ireland, where I stay mostly in the countryside." Google's results were just a page of results with links. ChatGPT gave me a planned, day-by-day itinerary with specific locations and activities. Also: The best AI search engines of 2024: Google, Perplexity, and more However, ChatGPT didn't automatically give me links or a call in the search feature. So, I slightly tweaked the initial prompt to say "with links" at the end and received a tailored response that included an itinerary with links to the sites and where to book: In this test, there was a clear winner, as one tool created a detailed itinerary with links to more information on each site and where to book, whereas the other tool led me to other sites, where I had to find out which was the most useful by trial and error. Also: Microsoft's Copilot AI is coming to your Office apps - whether you like it or not These results don't mean Google is rendered useless. I picked these examples to show ChatGPT's strengths over Google, including daily searches for general topics. Google still has some advantages, such as shopping and maps, which ChatGPT isn't ready to tackle. However, for everyday search queries, ChatGPT seems like the easiest way to quickly find the answers to what you want. The search experience is available on the ChatGPT website, desktops, and mobile apps for all ChatGPT Plus, Team users, and SearchGPT waitlist users. The ChatGPT Plus subscription costs $20 monthly and comes with other perks, such as the new Voice Mode, Canvas, and unlimited image generation. Enterprise and Edu users will receive access in the upcoming weeks, and free users will receive access in the coming months.

Goodbye Google? How to use ChatGPT's new web search.

Watch out, Google. After a limited testing period, OpenAI is opening up its ChatGPT web search tool to all users. The rollout starts with those paying $20 a month for ChatGPT Plus, but OpenAI says it'll show up for everyone, whether they're subscribers or not, in the coming months. While it uses the familiar ChatGPT interface, web search works a little differently. Instead of the bot relying on its training data to come up with answers, it scours the web for relevant and timely information, and then sifts through and summarizes what it's found to generate a coherent response. It means you can type all the queries you would normally plug into Google into ChatGPT instead -- from "what time is the Superbowl?" to "what are the best places to visit in Florence?" Answers appear in a conversation-style interface, complete with source links, so you can jump to the websites referenced. With Google results now regularly packed full of spam and adverts, ChatGPT's offering promises to provide a clearer and more streamlined experience. For the first time since Google launched, there's something arguably superior going up against it. In response, Google has also started adding its own AI to its search engine. Of course, there's still the problem of AI hallucinations, where ChatGPT invents fake or inaccurate information. Given that the search tool is proactively checking the web, and using data from third-party partners, this should be less of a problem than normal -- though it's still something to watch out for. There are also other valid concerns about AI power demands and AI bias. If you're a ChatGPT Plus subscriber, you can get started with the web search function by opening up a chat as normal. Just ask something that would typically require a web search, like "when's the next Lakers game?", and you'll get a response back from the web -- for that particular query, you'll also get info on the venue, and how to watch the game on TV. For each prompt, ChatGPT will judge whether or not to check the web or to rely on its Large Language Model (LLM) training data. If you want to force ChatGPT to run a web search whatever the query, click the small globe icon in the input box. Every prompt will then reference the web, until you click the icon again. Almost anything you would previously have typed into Google works in ChatGPT too. Another example might be "what's that movie with George Clooney and Brad Pitt in it?" -- you'll then see a list of movies sourced from Wikipedia. The only movie ChatGPT missed in this test was 2002's Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, though to be fair to the AI, Pitt only had a brief cameo role. OpenAI has partnered with information providers for weather, sports, stocks, news, and maps, so you can ask about the weather forecast in a particular location, or prompt the AI with something like "where is the Five Guys in New York?" to see a map. You can also just ask for the day's news headlines, either for a specific part of the world or more generally. All of the usual ChatGPT conversation features are included when you're searching the web: You can give feedback on the responses with the thumbs up and thumbs down icons, you can copy the text to your computer clipboard, and you can have the answers read aloud. Web search chats get archived in the usual way, so you can reference them again, unless you specifically delete them. You may remember Google's own efforts to add AI to web search results hasn't been particularly successful so far -- with a recommendation to put glue on pizza attracting a lot of headlines. One of the ways ChatGPT is hoping to avoid these kinds of mistakes is by including source links alongside its answers. At the end of each response you'll see a small button leading back to the webpage where ChatGPT got its information from. You can also click the Sources button, and a full list of source sites appears on the right -- just select any link to visit the page. This lets you see whether or not ChatGPT is referencing sites you deem to be trustworthy. Based on our testing, ChatGPT web search hasn't made any 'glue on pizza' errors (Google's mishap was actually down to a rogue Reddit post). It's not always 100 percent accurate, as with the George Clooney and Brad Pitt example above, but then again articles on the web aren't always accurate: It's definitely worth double-checking information directly against trusted sources. When peppered with questions about music, sports, food, and DIY, ChatGPT did a good job of presenting reliable information and linking back to its sources. It even included a YouTube video or two when relevant, for extra context. When asked whether it was safe to put glue on pizza, it told us it definitely wasn't -- whilst also referencing the problem Google search had with this particular query. If you find ChatGPT web search superior to whatever you're already using, you can install a browser extension that will work in Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, and any other browser based on the Chromium code. It'll essentially replace Google in your browser: So web searches run from the browser address bar will launch ChatGPT, for example.

5 tips for getting the most out of SearchGPT

ChatGPT Search is one of the most important additions to the search engine landscape since the arrival of Google in the late 1990s. It joins AI search startup Perplexity and Google's own AI Overviews in taking us from the era of search engines to answer engines. Open AI first announced that it was working on a search engine earlier this year and brought it into ChatGPT last week for all users. It is based on the Microsoft Bing search index but with a natural language twist on top -- making it much easier to find what you're looking for. I've used SearchGPT as my default search engine in Chrome for nearly a week and the more I use it the more useful I find it. I'm now hoping for a mobile plugin so I can also switch from Google Search to ChatGPT Search on my iPhone. One solution is to switch to the Arc browser and make 'chatgpt.com/?q=%s' your search engine. There are some differences in finding information using SearchGPT compared to Google. It has its own quirks and behaviors that set it apart from the competition. I've found that it is as different to Google as Google was to Lycos and the other early search engines it disrupted. I've pulled together a few tips and tricks I've picked up after spending time using ChatGPT Search that might prove useful if you also decide to make the switch. The easiest way to use ChatGPT Search in Chrome is to install the SearchGPT plugin and make it the default search engine. We have a how to guide for switching. ChatGPT Search is still part of ChatGPT and while its conversational skills are somewhat stilted when in search mode, it is still built on top of the GPT-4o large language model. You can ask natural language questions or even send a message as if you were asking a friend for help. The more detail you can put into your question or query, the better ChatGPT's response. For example, if you want to know the 10 tallest buildings in Europe, make sure you include the in Europe part. You can even specify how it should display the information. For example, "Show me the ten tallest buildings in Europe in a table, ranked from smallest to largest." Or, as seen in the example above, you can ask it to show you the moons in the Solar System ordered by mean radius. One of my favorite aspects of AI chat platforms is just that -- chat. Being able to hold a conversation and know it can pick up on even subtle references is incredibly powerful. This also applies to search in ChatGPT. You can ask your initial query about the tallest buildings in Europe then follow it with something like "what about North America" and it will know you are talking about the tallest buildings. You can even say "what about natural wonders" and it will know you mean in Europe. It can also be useful if you don't know exactly what you are looking for with your initial query. You can start with something fairly vague and refine it through follow up messages, even asking ChatGPT for help understanding what you want to get an answer about. For each point within its response to your query, ChatGPT will provide a citation in the form of a small text bubble. This links out to the website it pulled that information from, such as Tom's Guide or Wikipedia. Clicking it will help you expand on the information snippet. I may be biased but I think going to the source of a story, and not just using the AI snippet, is a great way to learn more about a topic. The original articles often include additional information, context and resources such as charts or tables. Especially if its an academic source. In some ways, ChatGPT Search is similar to Google, especially in the way it handles multimedia content. It can pull images and video clips into the results for more visual information. You can specifically ask it to find images. For example, I asked it to show me an image of the largest building in Europe and then show it next to the largest building in the world. It was able to show me the Burj Khalifa in Dubai next to the Lakhta Center in Russia in images from the web but did hallucinate by generating an illustration of the two together. You can also use the full range of tools available within ChatGPT including the multitude of GPTs and DALL-E, the AI image generator, so if it hallucinates an image just type @DALL-E and ask it to make the image you were expecting. Finally, ChatGPT Search is a search engine just like Google. In addition to displaying a descriptive text answer to your query with inline citation links, it also shows all sources returned in response to a query in a new sidebar view. This looks like any Google result. Because of the way sources are still pulled in you can also use ChatGPT for a 'site-specific search'. Just ask it to only look at a specific website. No need to specify site:tomsguide.com as you would with Google, just say "find stories about Apple Intelligence on tomsguide.com" or even just Tom's Guide and it will know what you mean. As well as specifying your source you can also specify a time range. So, for example, you could ask it to find all the stories about ChatGPT written by Ryan Morrison for Tom's Guide in June 2024 and it will refine the search without any need to change settings or use tools.

I tried ChatGPT Search and now I might never Google again

21 years ago I wrote, "I Search Therefore I Google". It's something I could arguably still write today, along with the billions of others who start their day with a query dropped into the Google homepage or, more likely, their address bar where Google is casually seated. All that could change, though, and now, after using ChatGPT search, I wonder if a half decade from now, I'll write "I search therefore I ChatGPT". OpenAI's ChatGPT has already had an incredible run as one of the first generative AI platforms everyone knows about, if not uses. The ambition to add search to the platform was well-known and, in some ways, seen as a smart way to bridge the gap between what often appeared to be canny answers and too-frequent hallucinations and misinformation. With the indexed and current web as a foundation, ChatGPT is instantly smarter. The allure of a generative AI search engine is the conversational nature and the ability to maintain context without restating the initial query. Discovery is more of an interactive exploration. When OpenAI announced its plans to introduce SearchGPT (what became ChatGPT search) I signed up for early access. As a result, even though I have a free ChatGPT account, I got access to ChatGPT 4o with integrated search. It's a pretty subtle integration; you access search by selecting the globe in the prompt box. Once you do that, you're in ChatGPT search until you turn it off. For the TL;DR crowd, here's what I found: With the exception of awareness, ChatGPT Search is all the things early Google was before it started monetizing our eyeballs. Modern Google Search now carries so much water for all of Google's other products and services (and its voracious need for revenue) that it's unrecognizable from the search engine I loved in 2003. Generative AI in the form of the ChatGPT 4o model is the not-so-secret sauce and is what makes this search seem almost aware and able to synthesize disparate information into cohesive text that makes sense. It's also how it keeps track of the conversation so that subsequent searches continue the discovery thread instead of forcing you to restate it. Throughout my experience, I kept looking for any of ChatGPT's signature errors and hallucinations. After all, OpenAI still makes it clear with a label at the bottom of the page that "ChatGPT can make mistakes". Perhaps we can attribute the accuracy to ChatGPT search not relying solely on its ability to guess at what word should come next (a key component of large language models (LLMs). It appears to craft the generative response based on the facts it finds on reputable websites. While Google is top-loading AI overviews that push down traditional results, ChatGPT is nothing but the overviews. Yet it somehow seems cleaner, more concise, and less like an uninvited search results guest. I asked about the best products in categories like turntables and DSLRs. In each case, I got clear summaries with bullet lists. Under each of them was a citation (I often found information culled from TechRadar). As with other searches, I could ask a follow-up without restating the initial question. In the case of DSLRs, I asked which is best for wildlife photography. I got a brief summary of what makes a good wildlife camera and then details on which ones are best, again all from reputable sources. I asked how much 45 pennies weigh and got a nice detailed answer that noted that the weight has changed over the years. Usually, the sources are inline, but in this case, I had to click the Sources button to see that it pulled the information from the US Mint and Wikipedia, among others. That button, by the way, usually shows a group of tiny brand icons to credit sources, When I followed up with "Are any more valuable than others?" ChatGPT Search knew I was still talking about the pennies. For what it's worth, 1,943 copper pennies are particularly valuable. Then I asked Google the same question, AI overviews weren't available and the first result was a link to Quora with a summary of what appeared to be guesses. I'm surprised the US Mint results didn't appear above the virtual fold. When I asked ChatGPT for directions from Bryant Park to Dumbo Brooklyn, it used a source I'd never heard of (Rome2Rio), but it was accurate. When I asked a follow-up, "Can I see a map?" it maintained context and showed me an MTA subway map. Later, I conducted the same search but this time followed with "Is there good food?" Again, ChatGPT search knew I was still talking about Dumbo and returned almost a dozen options that I could pursue through a side-scrolling carousel. Vinegar Hill House with its cast-iron chicken looks yummy. In one funny turn, though, directions for each eatery link to - wait for it - Google Maps. When I conducted the same Bryant Park to Brooklyn search on Google, it did a better job of integrating a big Google Map and also used Rome2Rio. Below that was one of Google's many search enhancements, the "People also ask" section. It's not something I asked for, though some might argue details about, for instance, which subway is closest to Bryant Park, could come in handy. There really isn't a good way in Google to apply a follow-up question like, "Is there good food?" First, I had to delete the text already in my Google Search box and the results returned restaurants for my area and not Dumbo, Brooklyn. Unlike Google, ChatGPT search doesn't generate an entirely new page for my queries and instead maintains the thread. I can scroll back up to see where I've been, what I've been asking, and the answers ChatGPT search returned. I'm not arguing that SearchGPT is the better search engine. It's way too early for that and I doubt OpenAI's knowledge graph is anywhere near as rich as Google's. Plus, Google integrates its myriad tools into search in ways not yet possible with ChatGPT. Even so, right now, ChatGPT search just feels better. But being better doesn't mean ChatGPT search wins. Google is a verb and ChatGPT is far from that. Sure, everyone is talking about it but consumers do not use it at anywhere near the level they do Google, which is essentially a homepage for many. I'm sure that when I'm done experimenting with ChatGPT search, I'll lapse right back into using Google, like a reflex. Unless, of course, I install the Chrome extension that could make ChatGPT my browser's new default search engine. Now that would be interesting and probably a significant concern for Team Google.

Goodbye, Google -- I spent the weekend with ChatGPT Search and I'm not going back

OpenAI unveiled its search engine, SearchGPT, inside its ChatGPT artificial intelligence platform last week. Since then, the company has rolled out a Chrome plug-in that makes it your default search engine, so I spent the entire weekend using just ChatGPT for search. Over the past few months, I've swapped between Perplexity, which works similarly to ChatGPT Search, and Google as my default. I usually go back to Google simply because it makes it easier to find specific websites rather than just information. That wasn't an issue with ChatGPT, and I maybe turned to Google once or twice to verify a ChatGPT response. What I found, compared to using Google with AI Overviews or Perplexity, is that ChatGPT was cleaner, gave me the information I wanted and had more apparent sources for that data. It also explained why it offered a specific link in more detail than any other search engine I've tried. Originally, I was just going to use search as a tool in ChatGPT but keep Google as the default; after all, it usually gives me the link or information I need. However, I decided to try switching and making ChatGPT the default in Chrome to see if it could meet the various requirements I have for searching. My first reaction was that this was a massive step up from previous experiments I've tried with AI search simply because of how the information was presented. This may have been due to my familiarity with the ChatGPT user interface though. The big benefit was that I could ask a natural language question as well as how I'd like it to be presented, and the response would be exactly what I was hoping for -- with accurate citations, links and data. For example, I could ask it how many moons there are in the solar system and to display it by size, and that is exactly what ChatGPT would give me. I got a similar result from Perplexity but the interface is more cluttered, and it took longer. Google offered a NASA link that had some information on moons but no table. It didn't trigger the AI Overviews. What I found was that searching through ChatGPT felt more like the original Google where the data you wanted was right there without all of the extra features and fluff that goes with a modern search engine. An analogy is to that of a clean install of Windows without the bloatware. One thing I was nervous about in terms of switching straight to ChatGPT as my default search engine in Chrome was how well it would handle a request for just a simple website. While I do use the Omnibox for searching, I also use it for browsing the web, and sometimes that includes typing in the name of a website and trusting that Google will present that to me as the first result, especially if I'm unsure of the exact URL. Perplexity struggles with this because of the way it presents website URLs in a box on the side or across the top of the result view. Still, I was pleasantly surprised by ChatGPT as it offered the URL right at the top as a clickable link before it gave you its analysis. What was particularly interesting is that it gave you a breakdown of what was available on the side with specific links within the body of the text to each element. For example, it talked about our streaming coverage and offered a link to the streaming page. It also has live data access for common things like weather, news, sports and stocks. You could ask when Arsenal is next playing near me, whether I'd need to take an umbrella and how to get there from my location. It checked the Premier League schedules, the Met Office forecast, and UK travel data to present me with a full itinerary based on one search. I assumed I would just keep this for the weekend and then move back to Google as I did when I switched to Perplexity. I also assumed I would regularly switch to Google or manually go to Google.com for specific queries that ChatGPT couldn't handle. My assumption was wrong. Not only have I kept it as my default search engine in Chrome, but I also found myself annoyed that I can't make it my default in Safari or on my iPhone. ChatGPT Launched 2 years ago as an experiment to showcase the natural language capabilities of the GPT-3 large language model. It has now firmly cemented its position as one of the most powerful productivity platforms on the market, and that position is only going to grow.

I just tested Google vs ChatGPT search -- and I'm shocked by the results

With OpenAI's new real-time search feature, ChatGPT is positioning itself as a competitor to traditional search engines like Google. Known for its conversational responses, ChatGPT delivers real-time, contextual information without ads. I jumped at the chance to see how ChatGPT Search stacks up against Google's long-standing expertise in search. I ran several comparisons between ChatGPT's new feature and Google, covering categories like speed, accuracy, visuals, and overall user experience. Here's how they performed. Prompt: "What are the top tourist attractions in Tokyo?" Google: Google's search engine is very quick and the results are delivered within milliseconds. With images and links for context, the search engine has years of optimization in its corner, and an infrastructure built specifically for high-speed indexing and retrieval. With this prompt and others, I received instant access to a wide range of relevant results across multiple sources. ChatGPT: ChatGPT's search was equally fast and generated images and information for each location in a much clearer, user-friendly way. It was apparent the AI generated the response by pulling from relevant sources and then shared the information in a conversational answer. The results felt friendlier, almost as if the AI is excited for me to take a trip. Winner: ChatGPT Search takes the lead for a valuable, speedy response delivered in a conversational, yet concise way. Prompt: "Explain the differences between climate change and global warming." Google: Google's response came from Gemini with an overview of both climate change and global warming wrapped into one short paragraph. From there, I could scroll down and search through a few links from NASA, USGS.gov, and even Quora. It is clear the algorithm prioritizes popular and authoritative sources, but it's also ad-driven, meaning that the top results sometimes include sponsored content like the one I saw from Unilever. Additionally, with complex topics, I found myself navigating multiple links to piece together a full answer. ChatGPT: ChatGPT provides a direct answer, pulling verified information from the web, and then adds a clickable "Sources" icon. This feature cuts down on the time I'd spend gathering information from multiple sites within the Google search. With this search and others, ChatGPT's summaries were on-point for general queries and even more detailed topics, and its design allows for a cleaner, focused experience. (Keep in mind, though, that ads could come in the future.) Winner: ChatGPT Search wins this round for its directanswers that are convenient and precise. Prompt: What is Apple's current stock price, and are there any recent news updates? Google: Google didn't actually give me an immediate answer. Instead, I got a link to Yahoo Finance where I could click around and hopefully find the answer myself. ChatGPT: In milliseconds the answer was in front of my eyes. I also got news and updates about Apple with, of course, sources. ChatGPT Search is so refreshing. I'm getting answers to questions without digging around for details. I'm saving time by having the answer presented right before me without clicking a few more times. It is clear that for real-time stock or weather updates, ChatGPT offers comparable accuracy and even more depth despite Google's vast database of visuals. Winner: ChatGPT continues to impresses with its curated, real-time direct answers, showing promise for future updates. Prompt: Show me recent studies on mental health impacts of social media. Google: Google offers so many different answers I'm not even sure where to look. From the Gemini response to the side bar to the link results below, the whole experience is extremely cluttered -something I've never noticed before using ChatGPT Search. Also, Google's advertising model means user data is often leveraged to deliver personalized ads. While Google has extensive privacy policies and settings, its ad-driven approach can lead to targeted content that may not always prioritize user privacy. ChatGPT: Wow. Once again ChatGPT search provides a cleaner interface without promoted content. For searches this personal, the extra privacy-focused approach is much appreciated. It is far more appealing to me as a user who wants information without being targeted by ads during the search -- or after. Winner: ChatGPT leads for an approach that takes privacy and responsible content use into account. When it comes to sensitive searches, not being targeted with ads is a huge bonus. Prompt: What is the best TV for my living room? Google: I said what I said, Google. After correcting me for typing "What's" instead of "What is" Google responded with a few links, all of which were sponsored, for me to click through and find a TV. After getting this response, I feel as though I need to ask it again to help narrow it down. However, beneath the sponsored links there were links for content publishers like Tom's Guide for its best TVs page. ChatGPT: ChatGPT Search narrowed it down for me, included images, and gave me the answer I wanted. The AI really does feel like a friend offering up valuable information. Accompanying each TV image was a blurb offering information about each one. The design feels much cleaner and concise compared to Google. Plus, the conversational format is intuitive, so I can scroll through the recommendations without needing to dig through multiple links like I would need to do with a Google search. Google: The results from Google included news stories about the election. My hope with this question was to get no-nonsense, real-time results about who is leading today in the Presidential election polls. I would have had to dig through the news stories to get the answer. ChatGPT: ChatGPT Search gave me the results exactly how I wanted them with just the facts. The election news is everywhere so I didn't need to read more news stories. ChatGPT gave me a direct answer. Google: The first result from Google was a quote pulled from a New York Times story on the topic. This was a quick response and direct answer. Yet, it left me feeling like I didn't have the whole story. ChatGPT: ChatGPT Search gave a more thorough response with information pulled from more sources, yet still felt clean and concise. I got the complete picture of the Yanks' utter failure. Winner: ChatGPT again, offers real-time answers that I'm looking for plus adds the thoroughness that confirms I'm getting all the information. Both ChatGPT and Google excel in different areas, but they cater to slightly different needs. If you're looking for comprehensive search results with a vast array of sources and visuals, Google is still the powerhouse. However, if your priority is clear, ad-free, conversational responses with built-in real-time updates, ChatGPT offers a streamlined, user-friendly experience that could easily become a staple for everyday queries. The clutter-free answers from ChatGPT Search with sources to back them up are thorough and reliable. I feel more confident in the ChatGPT answers because they are so concise and without advertisers backing them. The results feel as though the results are just for me. In a cluttered web, ChatGPT feels like a helpful friend, and I like that.

ChatGPT Search is not OpenAI's 'Google killer' yet

Last week, OpenAI released its highly anticipated search product, ChatGPT Search, to take on Google. The industry has been bracing for this moment for months, prompting Google to inject AI-generated answers into its core product earlier this year, and producing some embarrassing hallucinations in the process. That mishap led many people to believe that OpenAI's search engine would truly be a "Google killer." But after using ChatGPT Search as my default search engine (you can, too, with OpenAI's extension) for roughly a day, I quickly switched back to Google. OpenAI's search product was impressive in some ways and offered a glimpse of what an AI-search interface could one day look like. But for now, it's still too impractical to use as my daily driver. ChatGPT Search was occasionally useful for surfacing real-time answers to questions which I would have otherwise had to dig through many ads and SEO-optimized articles to find. Ultimately, it presents concise answers in a nice format: You get links to the information's sources on the right side, with headlines and a short snippet that confirms that the AI-generated text you just read is correct. However, it often just felt impractical for everyday use. In its current form, ChatGPT Search is unreliable for what people use Google for the most: Short, navigational queries. Queries shorter than four words represent the bulk of searches on Google; these are often just a few keywords that get you to the right webpage. They're the kind of searches most people are barely even conscious they're making all day, and it's what Google tends to do very well. I'm talking about "Celtics score," "cotton socks," "library hours," "San Francisco weather," "cafes near me," and other queries that make Google the doorstep to the internet for billions of people. My test run with ChatGPT Search was quite frustrating at times, and it made me conscious of just how many keyword searches I perform in a day. I couldn't reliably find information using short queries, and for the first time in years, I actually longed for Google Search. Don't get me wrong, Google has declined in quality for the last decade or so, largely because it's been flooded with ads and SEO. Still, I kept opening Google in a separate window during my test because ChatGPT Search couldn't get me a correct answer or webpage. I typed in "Nuggets score" to check how a live NBA game between the Denver Nuggets and the Minnesota Timberwolves was going. ChatGPT told me the Nuggets were winning even though they were actually losing, and showed a Timberwolves score that was 10 points lower than it really was, according to a Google result at the same time. Another time, I tried "earnings today," to check the companies reporting quarterly results that could affect stock prices on Friday. ChatGPT told me that Apple and Amazon were reporting their results on Friday, even though both companies had already reported a day earlier. In other words, it hallucinated and made up information. In another test, I typed in a tech executive's name to find their contact information. ChatGPT showed me a summary of the person's Facebook profile, and hallucinated a link to their LinkedIn page, which produced an error message when I clicked it. Another time, I typed in "baggy denim jeans," hoping to shop. ChatGPT Search described to me what baggy denim jeans were in the first place (a definition I didn't need), and recommended I go to Amazon.com for a nice pair. I could go on, but you get the idea. Broken links, hallucinations and random answers defined my first day using ChatGPT Search. This was not an insignificant launch for OpenAI. Sam Altman praised the feature for being "really good," even though he's known for downplaying his startup's AI capabilities. The reason this time is different may have something to do with search being one of the biggest businesses on the internet, and OpenAI's version could be a real threat to its biggest competitor, Google. To be fair, Google Search is a 25-year-old product and ChatGPT Search is brand new. In a blog post, OpenAI says it plans to improve the feature based on user feedback in the coming months, and it seems more than likely this could be a significant area of investment for the startup. To its credit, ChatGPT Search is rather good at answering long, written-out research questions. Something like, "What American professional sports league has the most diversity?" isn't a question you could easily answer with Google, but ChatGPT Search is pretty good at scraping multiple websites and getting you a decent answer in just a couple of seconds. (Perplexity is also pretty good at these questions, and its search product has been around for well over a year.) Compared to the traditional version of ChatGPT, which already had web access, the search feature feels like a better interface for browsing the web. There are more clear links to the sources where ChatGPT gets its information now -- for news stories, ChatGPT will be tapping the media companies that it's been striking all those licensing deals with. The problem is that most searches on Google are not such long questions. To really replace Google, OpenAI needs to improve these more practical, short searches people are already making throughout their day. OpenAI is not shy about the fact that ChatGPT Search struggles with short queries. "With ChatGPT search, we've observed that users tend to start asking questions in more natural ways than they have in the past with other search tools," said OpenAI spokesperson Niko Felix in a statement emailed to TechCrunch. "At the same time -- web navigational queries -- which tend to be short, are quite common. We plan to improve the experience for these types of queries over time." That said, these short keyword queries have made Google indispensable, and until OpenAI gets them right, Google is still going to be the mainstay for many people. There are a couple reasons why OpenAI might be struggling with these short queries. The first is that ChatGPT relies on Microsoft Bing, which is widely regarded as an inferior engine compared to Google. The second reason is that large language models may not be well suited to these short prompts. LLMs typically need fully written out questions to produce effective answers. Perhaps there needs to be some re-prompting -- running short queries through an LLM as a longer question -- before ChatGPT Search can do such searches well. Though OpenAI has only now released its search product, Perplexity's own AI search tool is already serving 100 million search queries a week. Perplexity has also been touted as a "Google killer," but it runs into the same problems with short queries. Aravind Srinivas, the CEO of Perplexity, discussed how people use his product differently compared to Google Search at TechCrunch Disrupt earlier this week: "The median number of words in a Google query is somewhere between two and three. In Perplexity, it's around 10 to 11 words. So clearly, more of the usage in Perplexity is people coming and directly being able to ask a question. On the other hand, at Google, you're typing in a few key words to instantly get to a certain link." I think the fact that people are not using these products for web navigation presents a bigger problem than OpenAI or Perplexity are letting on. It means that ChatGPT Search and Perplexity are not replacing Google Search for the task it's best at: web navigation. Instead, these AI products are filling a new niche, surfacing information that gets buried in traditional search. Don't get me wrong, that's valuable in its own right. OpenAI and Perplexity both claim they will work on getting better at these short queries. Until then, I don't think either of these products can fully replace Google. If OpenAI wants to replace the doorstep to the internet, it has to create a better one.