Initial Thoughts On New ChatGPT Search Feature

OpenAI now has a search feature on ChatGPT that allows you to

1. Search the web directly within ChatGPT
2. Make ChatGPT your default search engine

This is potentially a massive step forward in how the public uses large language models in our daily lives.

We have been testing it out, here is a quick guide and our initial impressions

Initial Reactions - A Step Forward

The launch of ChatGPT search is a massive step forward for the platform.

When it was initially launched, the criticism was that the training data only gave historical information, anchoring the data in time and restricting potential use cases.

Finding sources and fact-checking them effectively was also challenging, a real concern given the potential for data hallucinations. Again, this was a significant platform constraint, limiting the tasks and activities you might rely on ChatGPT to help you with.

This launch fixes these problems, widely expanding the potential uses of the platform.

Initial Reactions - Good Start That Needs Work

However, the search feature still needs some work; the ability to favour sources and tailor results is not quite there.

For example, despite multiple attempts, I could not get the weather in Celcius, despite multiple prompt attempts.

Make ChatGPT Your Default Search Engine?

One feature is making ChatGPT your default browser within Google Chrome.

This is interesting as broad adoption would undoubtedly challenge Google and transform how we access information.

Whilst this is exciting, in practical terms, the solution is not quite good enough to convince us we need to switch.

The results were not quite as intuitive as we would have liked, and many of our key searches, such as directions or snapshots of data, are not quite ready within the ChatGPT search.

Search needs to connect you with the information you want almost instantly in a format that is easy to digest.

Here is an example of asking for information from Peterborough to Sevenoaks.

Here is what you get from ChatGPT compared to Google search.

The results from Google are much easier to digest and understand,

This is far superior to the results from ChatGPT, showing there is still a way to go before we make ChatGPT our default search engine.