OpenAI SearchGPT: ChatGPT with Internet and browsing tools

A Better Alternative for Perplexity and Google Search

And the much-anticipated product by OpenAI, SearchGPT is out last night boasting some major features, taking it a step ahead of Perplexity, their arch-rivals.

As announced by OpenAI, SearchGPT is a lot more than just ChatGPT with the internet.

It is an AI web browser in itself

Talking about a few key features:

• Advanced Filtering: Set filters for specific dates, sources, or content types (e.g., peer-reviewed articles only, government sites, etc).
• Context-Aware Summaries: Generate summaries, key takeaways, or insights tailored to particular fields, like medicine or finance.
• Citation Generation: Automatically format and provide citations in academic styles (APA, MLA).
• Multi-Step Queries: Handle complex, layered questions across multiple sources in a single search.
• Data Analytics Integration: Directly pull and analyze data for insights (e.g., trend analysis). SearchGPT could connect to specialized databases, allowing access to specific fields (like medical journals, legal case databases, or proprietary business analytics).
• Personalized Recommendations: Suggest relevant sources, articles, or updates based on your search history. This includes Pre-set Templates or Personas: For example, a research-focused “SearchGPT” could be set up to retrieve scientific data and offer academic citations directly.

Was ChatGPT not able to access the internet before?

It does (for premium members). But now, these capabilities are more advanced. To check out how a general web search is different from SearchGPT, I tried asking ChatGPT itself (free version) to search the internet for a query:

Then, I asked how this search was done.

Next up,

So, as you can read, SearchGPT is not just a mere web browsing tool, but a lot more. Unfortunately, OpenAI has made SearchGPT available for Pro users and only to the waitlist users. If you’ve access, you must have received this mail yesterday

Below are some screen grabs from SearchGPT

As you can see, it provides trending topics as suggestions while searching, similar to a web browser.

Try checking out the weather today

And can even restrict it to just check specific websites like “cite just government sites”

All the citations can be explored at the bottom together for your results

SearchGPT vs Perplexity. Which is better?

A tough question to answer, at least for now. A few points to highlight are

1. Perplexity is free, SearchGPT is not!
2. SearchGPT is faster. But I assume this is because of lesser traffic right now.
3. Perplexity is simpler, and also, has the early mover advantage
4. Perplexity, being in the space for a long time, is more reliable compared to SearchGPT
5. SearchGPT provides more customizations and is not just LLM with the internet.

To be honest, I’m always in favour of free stuff hence will prefer Perplexity any day. Though, given SearchGPT’s early response, the tool is pretty good and worth trying out.