OpenAI to launch AI-powered search engine, challenging Google's dominance

livemint.com:

OpenAI has been developing a search tool aimed at competing not only with Alphabet’s Google but also with Perplexity, a promising AI search startup. This new venture is expected to enhance the capabilities of OpenAI's ChatGPT, allowing it to fetch real-time information from the web and include citations in its responses, the report added. OpenAI declined to comment on the upcoming announcement, Reuters reported.

The timing of the announcement could be strategic, possibly occurring just a day before Google's annual I/O conference. At this event, Google is anticipated to introduce a series of AI-centric innovations, as per the report OpenAI's initiative extends its ChatGPT functionality, which currently leverages the company's advanced AI models to deliver human-like text responses. Despite being touted as a revolutionary tool for online information retrieval, ChatGPT has faced challenges in providing accurate, up-to-date web content.

To mitigate this, OpenAI previously integrated the service with Microsoft's Bing search engine for premium users. In contrast, Google has been enhancing its search engine with new generative AI features, the report added. Meanwhile, Perplexity AI, established by a former OpenAI researcher and valued at $1 billion, has made headway by offering a search interface that uniquely presents citations and images along with text responses.

The startup reported having 10 million monthly active users as of January, as per Reuters. Following its late 2022 debut, ChatGPT quickly became the fastest application to achieve 100 million monthly active users. However, Similarweb notes that the global traffic to ChatGPT’s website has experienced fluctuations over the past year, only recently stabilising to match