What simply occurred? OpenAI has made ChatGPT’s internet search device accessible to everybody while not having to log in or join first. The characteristic, which is built-in into the AI chatbot and accessible on chatgpt.com, was launched final October earlier than increasing to extra customers later within the yr.
To entry the net search characteristic, customers merely have to navigate to the web site, click on on the search button, and enter their question. ChatGPT will then scrape the net for related info and reply in a conversational method, like an AI chatbot. Like some other conventional search engine, ChatGPT’s replies embody images and hyperlinks to the web sites from which it sourced its info.
The characteristic can also be accessible on the Android app however has not but rolled out to iOS on the time of writing. At this stage, there is not any official clarification from OpenAI about when will probably be accessible on Apple’s App Retailer, but it surely’s prone to occur sooner fairly than later.
ChatGPT’s internet search characteristic was initially solely accessible to paying ChatGPT subscribers, however in December 2024, OpenAI rolled it out to all customers with a free ChatGPT account. Nonetheless, many business observers believed that OpenAI would wish to make the characteristic accessible to all people – no matter whether or not they have a ChatGPT account or not – for it to have any probability of disrupting the net search market.
The Guardian reported in December that OpenAI’s internet search characteristic is weak to immediate injection methods. As per the report, if a web site makes use of hidden textual content to ship incorrect info utilizing HTML or CSS, the AI device picks it up and generates biased output. The flaw may very well be exploited to propagate misinformation, together with faux evaluations of merchandise on e-commerce websites.
Moreover, the report claimed that immediate injections in hidden textual content may be used to ship malicious code from web sites. The approach may very well be utilized by unscrupulous web site publishers to generate favorable evaluations of their merchandise on AI search instruments and deceive customers in numerous different methods. It’s unclear whether or not OpenAI has mounted the difficulty.
Vulnerabilities however, the transfer to supply AI-based internet search to all customers might pose Google its largest problem since its inception almost three many years in the past. Google is at present the main search engine on the earth, accounting for almost 90 p.c of all internet searches between January 2024 and January 2025. Nonetheless, OpenAI’s newest transfer might put strain on Google as ChatGPT search turns into extensively accessible.
