|
The
announcement date, though subject to change, has not been
previously reported. Bloomberg and the Information have reported
that Microsoft-backed OpenAI is working on a search product to
potentially compete with Alphabet's Google and with Perplexity,
a well-funded AI search startup.
OpenAI declined to comment.
The announcement could be timed a day before the Tuesday start
of Google's annual I/O conference, where the tech giant is
expected to unveil a slew of AI-related products.
OpenAI's search product is an extension of its flagship ChatGPT
product, and enables ChatGPT to pull in direct information from
the Web and include citations, according to Bloomberg. ChatGPT
is OpenAI's chatbot product that uses the company's cutting-edge
AI models to generate human-like responses to text prompts.
Industry observers have long called ChatGPT an alternative for
gathering online information, though it has struggled with
providing accurate and real-time information from the Web.
OpenAI earlier gave it an integration with Microsoft's Bing for
paid subscribers. Meanwhile, Google has announced generative AI
features for its own namesake engine.
Startup Perplexity, which has a valuation of $1 billion, was
founded by a former OpenAI researcher, and has gained traction
through providing an AI-native search interface that shows
citations in results and images as well as text in its
responses. It has 10 million monthly active users, according to
a January blog post from the startup.
At the time, OpenAI's ChatGPT product was called the fastest
application to ever reach 100 million monthly active users after
it launched in late 2022. However, worldwide traffic to
ChatGPT's website has been on a roller-coaster ride in the past
year and is only now returning to its May 2023 peak, according
to analytics firm Similarweb, and the AI company is under
pressure to expand its user base.
An earlier attempt to bring updated and real-world information
in to ChatGPT, called ChatGPT plugins, was retired in April,
according to a help center posting on OpenAI's website.
(Reporting by Anna Tong in San Francisco; Editing by Kenneth Li
and Matthew Lewis)
[© 2024 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.]
This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Thompson Reuters is solely responsible for this content.
|
|
