OpenAI brings its AI-powered web search tool to more ChatGPT users

ChatGPT Search, OpenAI’s AI-powered web search experience, is now live for all ChatGPT users — with several new features in tow.

By default, ChatGPT will automatically determine which questions to route through ChatGPT Search, or users can tap a new “Search the web” icon in the ChatGPT interface. ChatGPT Search shows summarized answers from different online sources, as well as “rich” content like embedded photos and YouTube videos.

ChatGPT Search launched in October as an evolution of OpenAI’s SearchGPT prototype, unveiled this summer. Powered by a fine-tuned version of OpenAI’s GPT-4o model, ChatGPT Search serves up information from the web — like sports scores, news, stock quotes, and more — along with links to relevant sources, at which point users can ask follow-up questions to refine their search.

ChatGPT Search was initially only available for premium ChatGPT subscribers. Now, free users can access it, as well.

ChatGPT Search has also been made “faster,” OpenAI said during a livestream Monday, and can now be set as the default search engine for any web browser. In addition, there’s an improved ChatGPT Search experience for mobile. On mobile, users can now see, for example, better-organized business info, including addresses (in Apple Maps on the iOS ChatGPT app) and phone numbers.

Lastly, ChatGPT Search is now available in Advanced Voice Mode, OpenAI’s real-time conversational feature for ChatGPT. In the coming days, users will be able to access up-to-date web info while using Advanced Voice Mode on mobile or desktop.

My colleague Max Zeff found ChatGPT Search to be a mixed bag when he tested it earlier this year. OpenAI is clearly intent on refining the feature, though, which it sees as a key avenue for growth.

Some publishers have protested AI-powered search tools such as ChatGPT Search, Perplexity, and Google’s AI Overviews, saying they threaten to cannibalize traffic to the sites from which they source their information. One study found that AI Overviews alone could negatively affect about 25% of publisher traffic due to the de-emphasis on links to webpages.

OpenAI says it has incorporated feedback from partners about how ChatGPT Search decides which articles are most relevant to a query, as well as determining the summary length and quotations for articles.