OpenAI’s ChatGPT web search feature is now available for everyone, even those without an account.
On Wednesday, OpenAI posted on social media platform X to announce that the ChatGPT search feature had officially been rolled out to all users without the need to sign up or log in.
The ChatGPT web search feature launched in late October last year. It is integrated directly into OpenAI’s ChatGPT AI chatbot at chatgpt.com.
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Users simply click the search button to use the search function. ChatGPT then answers their query in a typical conversational AI chatbot fashion. However, ChatGPT also includes relevant information from the Internet, including photos and links citing where it sourced its information. The links are presented in a search engine-esque way.
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When the search feature initially launched, it was only available to paying ChatGPT subscribers. In December of last year, OpenAI rolled out ChatGPT search to all users who were already logged into an account. Now, anyone can use ChatGPT search without an account.
A recent report from search engine optimization company Semrush found that while Google still has billions more search users than ChatGPT, OpenAI’s chatbot product was starting to send more and more search traffic to third-party websites.
It will be interesting to observe how users change their online search habits as new options, such as ChatGPT search, become more widely available.
