Starting today, OpenAI makes SearchGPT within ChatGPT available to paying users.
Paying subscribers will have access to SearchGPT, OpenAI’s AI-powered search engine, starting today. Access for other users will roll out gradually in the coming weeks.
SearchGPT is inside ChatGPT
The search engine is integrated into ChatGPT’s existing interface, and thus is not a separate product. SearchGPT decides for itself whether to display search results or default answers based on prompts. Users can also enter searches manually.
During a demo, we saw how the feature works with searches about Apples stocks and Italian restaurants, showing interactive maps and relevant information. The search technology is based on a refined version of GPT-4. ChatGPT’s search feature is available on iOS, Android and desktop, and uses technologies such as Microsoft’s Bing.
It is notable that OpenAI chooses not to show ads in search results. Nor are there any plans to do so for now. AI-driven search is a lot more expensive than the traditional way, and it is not yet clear how the company is going to open up the feature to free users. Free users would be limited in how often they can use this search model, though.
Recently, the cost of a ChatGPT subscription was increased from 20 euros to 22 euros per month, and that price may double again in the next five years. This is not surprising, as the chatbot costs a huge amount of money. The new features don’t make the cloud infrastructure behind ChatGPT any cheaper. Users don’t mind that much, though, because in August the tool clocked in at two million paying subscribers. That figure is only likely to rise.