It’s official! SearchGPT is live and now in the wild. They just finished an AMA (ask me anything) a few hours ago on reddit.
First things first, how do you access SearchGPT?
Turn on SearchGPT
Turning on the Search function is easy, just head over to ChatGPT.com, and click on the globe icon to enable “Search the web”.
Neat! So what can it do?
Similar to how you would search for information on Google, you can now do the same on SearchGPT.
The way SearchGPT picks up the information uses some services of Bing in the background, as you’ll notice some results are very close.
We did a comparison for the age old question: “what is the meaning of life?”. In the citation links and search results, you’ll notice that Bing’s results and SearchGPT’s results are fairly close.
It then provides a summarised answer based on all the sources it cites and the search results it returns. The format is still very much within the ChatGPT ecosystem, and the user experience on mobile is pretty rubbish to be honest. And if they don’t clean up their mobile experience, this is where the battle will be lost for them.
What’s the future of search now?
We don’t believe the new competitor on the block will replace Google, so no need to panic. ChatGPT as a whole, has about just over 200 million active users, many of whom are techy or saavy enough to navigate their way around.
Google however, has currently 4.97 billion users, meaning that SearchGPT would have to more than 25X their current number of users to even reach Google’s level. That’s a lot of GPU power that Microsoft will need to supply to maintain that demand.
Additionally, Google isn’t sitting idle either as they recently rolled out a search update (another one) where they now include an AI overview that understands when an informational query comes through, and when a general service based search is required (ie: searching for “web design sydney“).
There will definitely be a period of turbulence as the search landscape shifts to account for SearchGPT, but I don’t currently foresee this as Google giant being dethroned just yet, regardless of the rubbish results that people have been reporting the SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages).
Ample Tech’s wild predictions for the future
Wild prediction #1
Ok this one isn’t so wild, but it would make sense. There will be the option to paginate the search results that SearchGPT generates, which will update and enrich the information and summaries it provides.
Wild prediction #2
At some point, OpenAI, the parent company of SearchGPT will need to turn a profit, and most likely, that will come in the form of Bing Ads. It makes sense, (and dollars) and with Microsoft’s stake in OpenAI, this isn’t too farfetched.
Wild prediction #3
If Microsoft does start showing Bing Ads in SearchGPT, we anticipate Google will drop their CPCs and we’ll finally see, hopefully an end to Google’s CPC inflation, and see some actual reduced competition for keywords, and therefore, a lowering of CPCs. At least, for the short term.
Wild prediction #4
SearchGPT and Google AI summaries, will educate users into making long tail searches more often, diluting the keyword pool.
Exciting times ahead
We are now staring into the next tech battle, the battle for search dominance, a true David vs. Goliath battle on our hands. What are your wild predictions on the future of search?
