OpenAI has announced enhancements to ChatGPT’s web search, particularly improving the online shopping experience for users. This upgrade, available from Monday, allows users to receive tailored product recommendations, complete with images, reviews, and direct purchase links. Users can ask specific questions naturally and expect customised responses. Currently, OpenAI is focusing on categories like fashion, beauty, home goods, and electronics.
The updates will be rolled out to all ChatGPT users, including Pro, Plus, and Free accounts, as well as to those who are logged out, globally. This initiative aims to elevate ChatGPT’s standing in the competitive landscape of online information retrieval, posing a challenge to established giants like Google, which dominates the online shopping sector. OpenAI notes the importance of improving the quality of search results and creating a more personalised interface, particularly as ad placements in traditional search engines have been linked to declining search quality over time.
According to OpenAI, their search capability has been gaining traction, with over a billion web searches conducted via ChatGPT in the last week alone. Importantly, the shopping results generated will not include advertisements; rather, they will rely on structured metadata from third-party sources for accurate pricing and product details. OpenAI will not receive commissions on purchases made through its search tool. Although CEO Sam Altman has previously expressed reservations about incorporating advertisements, he has indicated a potential openness to “tasteful” affiliate models in the future, provided there are no paid prioritisation in search results.
Looking ahead, OpenAI plans to introduce a memory feature for Pro and Plus subscribers that will allow ChatGPT to pull from users’ previous interactions to refine product suggestions further. However, this feature will not be available to users in specific regions, including the EU and UK. Additionally, ChatGPT will incorporate trending topics as users begin typing searches, mimicking Google’s autocomplete feature. The incorporation of ChatGPT search into platforms like WhatsApp will also provide real-time answers to user queries.
OpenAI has previously experimented with shopping features through its AI platform, Operator, which took longer to find products. The new ChatGPT search aims to facilitate a faster, more interactive shopping approach, enabling natural language queries for product searches with ease.
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