Search is about to become much more
competitive. OpenAI made ChatGPT Search available to all logged-in users as part of its "12 Days of OpenAI" Christmas promotion.
Kevin Weil, OpenAI chief product officer, in a YouTube
video announced that the company has made ChatGPT search available to all.
The search feature -- initially made available under the name SearchGPT as invite-only about a month ago -- is now available to all users worldwide.
“OpenAI will probably take about 1% of the search market in 2025,” said Jim Yu, CEO at BrightEdge, referring to data the company released this week. “That’s a huge change. For the longest time there have been no new entrants to secure material market share.”
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For brands, referral traffic will become the biggest draw. OpenAI’s search engine grew 44% in referral traffic last month sequentially, and has become six times more popular compared with Perplexity -- which grew 71% in referral traffic, according to BrightEdge data.
OpenAI also posted on X that it has made its mobile and desktop apps available for all logged-in users.
In this version, links from sources such as Netflix or travel-booking sites appear at the top of search results, followed by ChatGPT’s text-based responses.
The update introduced voice search for users with Advanced Voice Mode.
It is accessible by tapping the audio waveform button. Users can ask for real-time information on topics such as travel, weather, or activities, and ChatGPT’s Voice Assistant will respond in one of ten voice styles.
The browsing speed has improved when users select ChatGPT as their default search engine. A new Chrome extension allows users to set ChatGPT as their default search engine for quick answers from reliable sources.
The tool has real-time video and screen-sharing features to ChatGPT's Advanced Voice Mode, and a way to initiate video by clicking on the video icon.