OpenAI transformed its popular ChatGPT service into a powerful search engine today, marking the company’s boldest move yet to compete with Google. The upgrade lets users ask questions in plain English and get real-time information about news, sports, stocks, and weather — features that until now required a separate search engine.

“We believe finding answers should be as natural as having a conversation,” an OpenAI spokesperson told VentureBeat. The company will roll out the feature first to paying subscribers, with plans to expand to free users in coming months.

ChatGPT Search: How OpenAI’s new AI-powered web search actually works

Unlike traditional search engines (i.e. Google and Bing) that return a list of links, ChatGPT now processes questions in natural language and delivers curated answers with clear source attribution. Users can click through to original sources or ask follow-up questions to dig deeper into topics.

The technology builds on OpenAI’s SearchGPT experiment from July, which tested the search features with 10,000 users. That limited release helped the company refine how its AI processes web information and attributes sources.

The system runs on a specialized version of GPT-4o, OpenAI’s most advanced AI model. The company trained it on massive amounts of web data and fine-tuned it to understand context across longer conversations.

Major news publishers partner with OpenAI to power next-generation search results

Major news organizations including the Associated Press, Axel Springer, and Vox Media have partnered with OpenAI to provide content. The deals aim to address long-standing concerns about AI systems using publishers’ work without permission or payment.

“ChatGPT search promises to better highlight and attribute information from trustworthy news sources, benefiting audiences while expanding the reach of publishers like ourselves who produce premium journalism,” said Pam Wasserstein, President of Vox Media, in a statement. Publishers can opt out of having their content used for AI training while still appearing in search results.

Inside OpenAI’s $5 billion bet on custom chips and AI infrastructure

The launch comes as OpenAI races to build its own technology infrastructure. The company recently announced deals with AMD, Broadcom, and TSMC to develop custom AI chips by 2026 — a move to reduce its reliance on Nvidia’s expensive processors.

These investments don’t come cheap. Microsoft, OpenAI’s biggest backer with nearly $14 billion invested, said this week the partnership will cut into its quarterly profits by $1.5 billion. OpenAI itself expects to spend $5 billion this year on computing costs.

This massive investment in custom silicon and infrastructure signals a crucial shift in OpenAI’s strategy. While most AI companies remain dependent on Nvidia’s chips and cloud providers’ data centers, OpenAI is making an ambitious play for technological independence. It’s a risky bet that could either drain the company’s resources or give it an insurmountable advantage in the AI arms race.

By controlling its own chip destiny, OpenAI could potentially cut its computing costs in half by 2026. More importantly, custom chips optimized specifically for GPT models could enable capabilities that aren’t possible with general-purpose AI processors. This vertical integration — from chips to models to consumer products— mirrors the playbook that helped Apple dominate smartphones.

The new search features will appear on ChatGPT’s website and mobile apps. Enterprise customers and educational users will get access in the next few weeks, followed by a gradual rollout to OpenAI’s millions of free users.

For now, Google remains the dominant force in search. But as AI technology improves and more users grow comfortable with conversational interfaces, the competition for how we find information online appears poised for its biggest shake-up in decades.