Update 05/10/2024 at 3:19pm ET: OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said that the company’s Monday announcement isn’t about a search competitor. In a post on the website better known as Twitter, Altman said the announcement is “not gpt-5, not a search engine” but acknowledged the company has been working on new stuff that “feels like magic.”
A tweet from OpenAI said the company will stream live on its website at 10am PT/1pm ET on May 13 to “demo some ChatGPT and GPT-4 updates.”
not gpt-5, not a search engine, but we’ve been hard at work on some new stuff we think people will love! feels like magic to me.
monday 10am PT. https://t.co/nqftf6lRL1
— Sam Altman (@sama) May 10, 2024
OpenAI reportedly plans to announce an artificial intelligence (AI) search product on Monday intended to challenge Google. The announcement would come just ahead of Google’s I/O conference, where the company is widely expected to announce new AI features, including some for its search product.
The report comes from Reuters, which cited “two sources familiar with the matter.” However, the rumoured announcement tracks with previous reports about OpenAI’s search plans, including ones from Bloomberg and The Information. According to prior reports, OpenAI will build the search product into the ChatGPT chatbot and Microsoft’s Bing search will “partly” power it.
Of course, it’s possible that OpenAI won’t announce the search product on Monday, as rumoured. However, if it does go through with the announcement, it’d be a clear shot at Google, which has been scrambling to catch up ever since OpenAI dropped ChatGPT. And it isn’t just OpenAI — several companies are gunning for Google’s position at the top of the search game. Microsoft, for example, is leveraging OpenAI technology in Bing to take on Google. Elsewhere, Perplexity, a start-up founded by a former OpenAI researcher, offers an AI-powered search product.
On top of all this, The Verge reports that OpenAI is trying to poach Google employees to help build its search product.
It looks like next week is shaping up to be an interesting one. On one hand, Google’s I/O conference kicks off on Tuesday and will likely be packed with AI announcements. On the other, OpenAI could upend the search game by getting ahead of Google with its own announcement. Whatever happens, it’s sure to be exciting.
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