Alphabet Shares Decline As OpenAI Launches SearchGPT, A Search Engine

A search engine prototype named SearchGPT was unveiled by OpenAI on Thursday. Its goal is to provide users with "quick and timely answers with clear and relevant sources."
 
The technology is now being evaluated with a small group of users, and the business stated that it eventually intends to integrate it into its ChatGPT chatbot.
 
There may be ramifications for Google and its leading search engine from the launch. Investors at Alphabet have been worried since ChatGPT launched in November 2022 that OpenAI would overtake Google in the search industry by providing users with additional avenues for finding information online.
 
OpenAI is experimenting with achieving precisely that with its prototype, offering users the ability to "search in a more natural, intuitive way" and pose follow-up queries "just like you would in a conversation."
 
Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, stated on X on Thursday that "we think there is room to make search much better than it is today."
 
On Thursday, Alphabet's stock dropped more than 3% to settle at $167.28, compared to a less than 1% decline on the Nasdaq.
 
Users can now read a summary of search results at the top of Google Search thanks to the May debut of AI Overview, which CEO Sundar Pichai dubbed the largest improvement in search in 25 years.
 
Despite the fact that Google has been working on AI Overview for more than a year, the feature was met with widespread outcry when users realised that there was no option to opt out and that searches were returning erroneous or nonsensical answers.
 
In reference to generative artificial intelligence, Daniel Faggella, founder and head of research at Emerj Artificial Intelligence Research, remarked, "Google has been kind of shaking in their boots a little bit since this stuff first popped off." "They haven't completely failed as a company in the interim, but they have made some mistakes."
 
The introduction of SearchGPT comes after OpenAI debuted a new AI model called "GPT-4o mini" last Thursday. The company's fastest and most potent model to date, GPT-4o, which it debuted in May during a livestreamed event with executives, is the ancestor of the new model.
 
Investors have estimated that Microsoft-backed OpenAI is worth over $80 billion. Established in 2015, the business has challenges in maintaining its leadership position in the generative AI space while generating revenue, given its substantial expenditures on processors and infrastructure for model development and training.
 
OpenAI revealed last month that it had hired two key executives and partnered with Apple to integrate ChatGPT with Siri.
 
Chief financial officer Sarah Friar, formerly CEO of Nextdoor and head of Square's finance department, joined, and chief product officer Kevin Weil, formerly president of Planet Labs, senior vice president of Twitter, and vice president of Facebook and Instagram, joined.
 
With competition arising quickly in the developing generative AI business and as its big language models acquire prominence throughout the IT sector, OpenAI is strengthening its C-suite.
 
The company's goal of being at the forefront of "multimodality," or the capacity to provide a variety of AI-generated media, such as text, photos, audio, video, and search, inside one tool—ChatGPT—includes both OpenAI's new micro AI model and the prototype of SearchGPT.
 
According to OpenAI's blog post, users will have a "richer understanding" of SearchGPT thanks to its visual results.
 
"The world is multimodal," said Brad Lightcap, Chief Operating Officer of OpenAI, to CNBC last year. Text-only interactions are insufficient because people "engage with the world, we see things, we hear things, and we say things," he continued.
 
(Source:www.forbes.com)