OpenAI is working on its own search engine, but it may not look or work like a traditional search (Google and Bing). The new ChatGPT search engine is codenamed “Sonic”, and we think it’s coming to all ChatGPT users in the coming months.
Thanks to new logs posted by X user Jimmy Apples, we can confirm that the ChatGPT search feature is a thing.
Recent findings from SSL certificate logs suggest that OpenAI might be working on a new search feature for ChatGPT. The logs show many different production and staging domains being set up across various regions. A domain name, search-dot-chatgpt-dot-com, has also been registered.
As shown in the above screenshot of the logs captured by CopilotLatest.com, these logs are records of security certificates (SSL) issued for search.chatgpt.com.
In this case, the certificates are for various subdomains related to OpenAI, particularly something that looks like a search feature because the subdomain starts with “search.”
SSL certificates are necessary for securing websites for public use as they encrypt data between users and the service, which is why I think the references are to SSL certifications and ChatGPT features are related.
More details of ChatGPT search called “Sonic”
Additionally, an AI researcher Paul noted on X that ChatGPT’s big a update called “Sonic – SNC (SearchGPT) is currently being tested.
ChatGPT search doesn’t look anything like Google or Bing, but it has three tabs: answer (summarizes web content), “sources” which includes links to the websites GPT crawled, and “images”, which could include a mix of AI and web images.
I think it’s a lot like the Perplexity AI, but better? I could be wrong, but Perplexity AI should worry about its future when ChatGPT search ships to consumers for free.
OpenAI is working on new helpful tools such as weather updates, calculators, sports scores, financial info, and timezone differences calculator. It also allows users to ask follow-up questions.
These tools are also offered on Google Search.
The SearchGPT feature seems to be using various versions of OpenAI’s models, including GPT-4 Lite (also known as Scallion; POR), GPT-4, or GPT-3.5 (Sahara-V). It uses different search engines, including Bing (POR), Sydney, Fortis, and an internal engine called Labrador.
A look at the settings for SearchGPT shows that it focuses on rewriting and summarizing web content. It provides instructions on how to summarize web pages into short sentences and create suitable titles, all without directly referring to the original web page.
OpenAI’s CEO, Sam Altman, also spoke about AI and search features on a podcast recently, which confirms the feature is indeed coming.