OpenAI has launched its own artificial intelligence-powered search engine, SearchGPT, which provides relevant and up-to-date answers to user queries in the form of quotes from verified sources. However, the first results of using SearchGPT were not the most impressive. According to The Verge, users have identified a tendency for many AI systems to hallucinate. SearchGPT shows results that are mostly either incorrect or useless.
For example, journalist Matteo Wong from the popular American magazine The Atlantic conducted his own test. He entered the search query “Music festivals in Boone, North Carolina in August”, after which he received a list of events that, according to SearchGPT, should take place in Boone in August. The first on the list was An Appalachian Summer Festival, which, according to AI, will hold a series of art events from July 29 to August 16. However, the reality turned out to be somewhat different: the festival began on June 29, and the last concert will take place on July 27, not August 16.
Partnerships and Industry Concerns
OpenAI launched SearchGPT in partnership with major news outlets such as the Associated Press, Financial Times, Business Insider, and others. Some deals cost the company millions of dollars. Many publishers are seriously concerned about how AI search could affect their business. There are concerns that SearchGPT or Google AI Overviews will provide too comprehensive answers, eliminating the need to click on links to articles and thereby depriving publishers of traffic, notes NIX Solutions.
Despite these concerns, companies see value in partnering with OpenAI to sell access to their content. Especially since OpenAI says publishers will be given the ability to control how their content is displayed in SearchGPT. We’ll keep you updated on how these partnerships evolve and the overall impact on the industry.