What Is OpenAI’s SearchGPT and How Might It Challenge Google?

Google and Perplexity’s rival OpenAI is releasing SearchGPT as a limited‑prototype and plans to integrate it into ChatGPT.

OpenAI announced its entry into the search market with SearchGPT, an AI‑powered engine that can access real‑time internet information.

The interface starts with a large text box asking, “What are you looking for?” and, instead of returning a list of links, it attempts to organize and understand the query.

In a demo, the engine summarized findings about a music festival and provided brief descriptions with attribution links. In another example, it explained when to plant tomatoes and broke down different varieties, allowing follow‑up questions or side‑panel links.

A feature called “visual answers” is mentioned, though OpenAI has not disclosed its mechanics.

SearchGPT is currently only a prototype and not publicly available.

OpenAI spokesperson Kayla Wood said the service runs on GPT‑4 models and is initially open to 10,000 test users, with plans to integrate the search function directly into ChatGPT.

This could pose a major threat to Google, which is racing to embed AI into its own search engine.

SearchGPT’s capabilities are comparable to Microsoft Copilot and Google AI Overviews, and it also competes with AI answer engines like Perplexity, which has faced criticism for alleged copyright infringement.

OpenAI emphasizes that SearchGPT is built with news partners such as The Wall Street Journal, Associated Press, The Atlantic, and TVox Media, offering clear, inline, named attribution and links so users know the source of information.

Releasing the engine as a prototype helps OpenAI manage risks: if results are inaccurate or contain attribution errors, the company can attribute any issues to the prototype stage.

OpenAI has been quietly recruiting Google talent for its new search team and is gradually tightening the integration between ChatGPT and real‑time web search.

The company warns that AI training and inference costs could reach $7 billion this year, and while SearchGPT is free at launch and ad‑free, OpenAI will soon need a sustainable revenue model.