SearchGPT: Disruption or hype? APAC experts share their thoughts

Last week, OpenAI introduced SearchGPT, an innovative AI-driven search engine poised to transform how users access real-time information from across the Internet. Unlike traditional search engines that provide a list of links, SearchGPT shares it organises and summarises search results, offering users concise and informative responses tailored to their queries. This approach aims to deliver more accurate, relevant, and easily digestible information. For example, SearchGPT can provide succinct descriptions of music festivals or detailed advice on planting tomatoes, complete with attributed sources.

Currently in its prototype phase, SearchGPT will be available to 10,000 users. The search engine is powered by GPT-4 models and collaborates with third-party partners to curate and direct content feeds. OpenAI plans to eventually integrate these advanced search features into ChatGPT, further enhancing its capabilities.  

With this latest move, the question arises if OpenAI aims to place itself in direct competition with the likes of Google and startups like Perplexity, which have faced criticism in the past for allegedly using publishers' content without proper attribution. In contrast, OpenAI has emphasised its desire to have a collaborative approach moving forward with news organisations and information outlets, promising clear attribution and links to sources.

Campaign speaks to industry experts to find out if SearchGPT can truly stand out in this regard and succeed.  

Dominique Rose Van-Winther
Chief AI evangelist and CEO
FInal Upgrade AI

In the fast-paced world of AI, every new tool is hailed as the next ‘ChatGPT killer’ or ‘Google killer’. But let's get real—these claims are often more hype than substance. OpenAI has fumbled this ball a few times, so I'm not holding my breath until I see the product in action.

Remember their first attempt? They used Bing, which is notorious for not delivering excellent results. It's like trying to hit a home run with a wiffle bat. And then there's Google's version, which was widely considered a flop. They trained it on data from Reddit, the famously sarcastic and chaotic online mob. The results? Pregnant ladies can smoke, you should eat three to four rocks a day, and adding glue to pizza helps the cheese stick better. There's a lot of work to be done. Take the recent announcement of SearchGPT, for example.

In a prerecorded demonstration video, a mock user typed "music festivals in Boone, North Carolina in August" into the interface. The tool pulled up a list of festivals, including "An Appalachian summer festival," claiming it happened from July 29 to August 16. But here's the kicker: The festival started on June 29 and ended on July 27. If someone in Boone tried to buy tickets based on that info, they'd be out of luck. I double-checked with the festival's box office; those dates were spot-on.

This error makes it clear that these tools are not ready for prime time. So, who will come out on top? It will likely be those with established interfaces—Microsoft and Apple. They have the infrastructure and the user base to integrate these technologies effectively. This new era presents both a challenge and an opportunity for digital marketers. Traditional strategies centred around SEO and content marketing are facing an existential threat.

You won't be able to game algorithms with keywords and backlinks as easily anymore. The landscape is shifting, and marketers must adapt or risk becoming obsolete. There's also the question of high operational costs. Projections suggest that OpenAI could lose up to $5 billion this year. And it's not just about the technology; there's the licensing issue too.

Even Perplexity, which I've been happy with, has come under fire for how it sources its information. If you don't have a way to monetise it, how do you pay for those licensing fees? Before anyone calls these new tools "world-class" or "Google killers," show me the proof. Until then, it's just more hot air in a crowded room.

Emilia Chambers
Head of strategy
The Pistol

Word of OpenAI’s launch of SearchGPT spread quickly, generating more buzz than any recent AI tool release. Previously, new AI tools often felt repetitive, lacking excitement. However, SearchGPT is different for several reasons: it's built by OpenAI, a leader in generative AI known for its GPT models, and it has the potential to finally provide a true rival to Google in AI search.

OpenAI, the brains behind SearchGPT, have cemented their place in the industry with the widespread uptake and utilisation of ChatGPT, changing how many companies operate. When such an industry leader releases something as significant as SearchGPT, people take notice. Previous attempts like Microsoft’s Copilot, which is the closest thing we have to a functioning AI search engine, have faced issues with accuracy and appropriateness. Copilot initially generated similar interest to SearchGPT but waned as its flaws emerged. SearchGPT, on the other hand, is built using Retrieval Augmented Reality (RAG), promising more accurate and reliable results by retrieving relevant information to support its output, reducing the gaps in knowledge that other tools often fill with incorrect or made-up information.

If SearchGPT lives up to its expectations, Google should be worried. Consumers and marketers have been waiting for a viable alternative to Google search, not just to see Google challenged but to have more options. Currently, most searches happen on Google because there isn’t a better option. While platforms like TikTok are chipping away at younger generations and social search is on the rise, no other platform has the potential to significantly divert traffic from Google. But SearchGPT does, and that is precisely what everyone has been waiting for.

For now, it’s hard to say what impact it will have on marketers, especially as it is only available to 10,000 users initially, with no set date for a public launch. Given past disappointments in this space, cautious optimism is advisable. Before SearchGPT can fundamentally change the marketing landscape, it must prove its strength and reliability as a search engine. 

Ganga Chirravuri
President of product and development, APAC
Dentsu

With the increasing availability of language models, the rise of AI-based search tools like SearchGPT is not just a possibility but also a promising future. Major players like Google are set to invest heavily in this area, potentially shifting traditional keyword searches to more interactive engagement-style searches. While a game-changer, this evolution may reduce user control over the information-seeking process, making the initial search prompt crucial. 

As product searches move to platforms like Amazon, Lazada, and Shopee, the trend of reducing reliance on traditional search engines is evident. However, the rise of AI-based searches raises concerns about personal data privacy. This underscores the urgent need for standards and regulations on data usage to ensure user comfort and security.

While the emergence of SearchGPT and similar AI-based search tools presents significant opportunities, it also poses challenges that users and marketers must navigate with caution. Marketers should proactively develop strategies to effectively engage with these tools, taking into account their unique features. In this rapidly evolving landscape, this is not just an early assessment but a call to action.

Phoebe Long
Client success, account director
Quantcast

AI is seamlessly integrating into marketers' daily routines, [so it's] a timely and fitting development. The adoption of AI in marketing reflects the field's natural evolution as it adapts to the transformative changes brought about by advancements in digital technology.

For marketers who depend on search to connect with new and existing customers, SearchGPT could open up a whole new world of opportunities for their marketing initiatives. For example, SearchGPT’s conversational interface allows for much more context to be integrated in the search process, which could revolutionise online shopping experiences with enhanced personalisation.

OpenAI’s recent partnerships with Apple and publishers such as News Corp mean marketers could use SearchGPT to reach hundreds of millions of users worldwide. This means SearchGPT could compete very effectively with other widely used search engines. This, combined with Microsoft’s investment, spells strong potential for OpenAI to level with or surpass Google in the future of search.

Antoine Gross
General manager for Southeast Asia and India
Impact.com

The need for genuine recommendations is increasingly eclipsing traditional advertising. Similarly to the growing trust in influencer endorsements, AI-driven search technologies like OpenAI's SearchGPT, designed to deliver personalised suggestions, have the potential to impact online search practices significantly.

Google's search results mix organic listings with paid ads, sometimes blurring the line between valuable information and commercial content. SearchGPT, however, might prioritise relevance over revenue, likely considering their existing subscription model, to focus on content quality, though its exact approach remains to be seen. SearchGPT, Google Gemini, and their likes could revolutionise search by prioritising relevance and usefulness, shifting the need for advertisers to focus on recommendations, and aligning with how people would naturally seek information or recommendations—through trusted sources rather than being served an ad.

As search practices evolve, the demand for authenticity rises. Modern searchers are increasingly goal-oriented, seeking validation through expert opinions rather than sales pitches. AI-driven search technologies, like SearchGPT, align with this behaviour by focusing on delivering relevant recommendations, promising a more satisfying search experience. This shift in user behaviour empowers marketers to adapt their approach by creating genuinely helpful content that users and AI systems recognise as valuable, potentially reshaping the digital marketing landscape.

Ben Farrar
Head of paid media
Jaywing

Searching on Google has become deeply embedded in how society finds information online over the last 20+ years, and it will take something significantly better to change that.

I don’t think SearchGPT fits that criteria. Yes, it’s different from a standard search, but not so much that it will change habits soon. Take TikTok as an example; more and more people are using the video platform to search, but it still hasn’t slowed Google down. They also show results from publishers who have agreed to appear. Until they can scale that, the number of websites that could appear in their search results will be severely limited.

There’s still much debate about how they’ll monetise it, too, so it’s too early for marketers to jump to conclusions about how it will work. With searches on the new platform likely to be longtail and broad, it’s unlikely that they’ll adopt the keyword bidding model that made Google so successful. Even Google has been moving away from that model towards a more intent—and context-based search system.

However, Google has the benefit of a massive tracking ecosystem that provides the data it needs to categorise web users. Open AI still has much to do if it wants to match Google. Open AI, and AI in general, are changing the landscape, but I don’t see this aspect changing any time soon. Marketers would do well to focus on what’s working and not get distracted by the new shiny toy.

Jordon Taylor-Bartels
CEO
Prophet

OpenAI has walked into the wolf's den, where Google has the most experience, funding, and capability. What makes Google Search so powerful is the simple query-based search function and the periphery functions that are now fully fledged standalone use cases, such as Maps, Shopping, Google My Business, and the Image/Video repository. The question should be about ChatGPT's history, explicitly about transparency and hallucinations.

We're yet to see the fundamental levers that brands can pull to improve their rankings, with the mission of surfacing the best and most appropriate result back to the query made—both in text and in the audience profile. A lot of, if not all, of OpenAI's capabilities—which are marvellous—lie within black-box machine-learning LLMs. How do they work? Don't ask anyone at OpenAI; even their CTO, Mira Murati, in an interview with Kara Swisher only a few weeks ago, was unable to answer how and why ChatGPT made a response and where it collected the information from.

Knowing this, how can we be sure, without transparency, whether OpenAI will favour publishers such as NewsCorp and The Atlantic in their AI search results? The beauty of Google's algorithm is its interpretability, which allows smaller, agile, and focused brands to elevate their services or opinions to the top and challenge the big players. With such a lack of internal and external transparency, how can we be sure that hallucinations—like the ones we've all experienced in ChatGPT to date—won't creep into a vulnerable and comparatively elementary history when it comes to search? We won't know until we know.

Darcy Mitchell
Strategy director
We Are Social

ChatGPT and Google are currently complementary. One, ChatGPT, provides the content, and the other, Google, provides the fact-checking and referencing. Directly integrating SearchGPT into the ChatGPT platform could fundamentally change this dynamic, making the gen AI platform a one-stop shop and giving its users even fewer reasons to trust Google’s content quality and search engine efficacy.

ChatGPT is also firmly on the ascendancy; it’s the world’s most used standalone AI tool, the eighth fastest growing app by consumer spend globally and is forecasted to hit a billion in revenue by the end of 2024)—whilst Google’s preoccupation with addressing global decreases in search results quality has perhaps indirectly contributed to slow uptake of its AI products.

Therefore, I predict that SearchGPT will help OpenAI lock ‘super users’ into the OpenAI ecosystem, while Google will gradually onboard casual users to its Gemini AI product through Gmail and Workplace integrations. Both sides will profit from AI adoption, and the launch of SearchGPT should (in theory) give Google a blueprint to adapt and evolve its current search experience.

For marketers seeking to adopt gen AI tools as part of their workflows, the implications of a highly competitive AI ecosystem that includes SearchGPT are overwhelmingly positive. More competition equals more tools, quicker feature releases and lower subscription costs. More sources or references equals less time spent fact-checking GPT-created content. For content marketers and publishers who depend on organic search as a referral channel, the launch of SearchGPT represents another obstacle towards driving non-paid traffic. It is a reminder (as if Google’s March 2024 algorithm update wasn’t enough) to all marketers that they must leverage AI responsibly to rank).

John Welsh
Principal architect
ITarchitectaas

SearchGPT can take on Google search, but first, let's look at what ChatGPT has already done to modernise the web. The basic premise of ChatGPT is to remove the need to do a basic search. Why spend time trolling through a list of Google's recommended web pages that corporations have paid top SEO marketers to elevate their ranking on, when you can just get an answer to a non-boolean question?

There are numerous discussions on the web about the impact ChatGPT should have on Google search. How will Google protect its advertising revenue, where will Google's ChatGPT competitor (Gemini) fit in an already complex portfolio of assistants, how can Google expand Gemini to assist us in our day-to-day activities, etc.?

But what's more interesting is ChatGPT taking on Google directly with SearchGPT. SearchGPT should fulfil our more visual web searches, assisting us in buying a new hoodie or the latest sneakers or finding the best-looking short-term stay for our next holiday. Is this a sign of troubled waters in Sam Altman's corporate strategy, a simple case of next-round funding for general AI or the result of an AI ethical quandary?

Competition typically brings better outcomes, and this one time will certainly tell. SearchGPT will be another marketing channel corporations can utilise and should bring competitive pricing to the advertising industry. Like what Amazon has done to Google's advertising revenue, SearchGPT should do the same.

Dex Laffrey
Head of search APAC
Monks

While some recent challenges have risen in terms of AI-powered search engines, including Bing and Perplexity, there hasn’t been any definitive indication that they could challenge the dominance of Google either right away or in the future.

The search landscape is evolving, but Google’s position remains strong for now, and there are a few reasons. Google still enjoys a higher than 90% market share globally, which hasn’t wavered since 2015. Online searching behaviour has settled around Google Search, especially advantages in its distribution -  typically seeing most use via products that surround Google Search, such as Chrome or Android, and even the Safari deal with Apple.

AI-powered search, in general, also has concerns to overcome—results with hallucinations address the reliability of AI search. Google’s AI overviews saw quite a few concerns when first launched. SearchGPT would need to overcome those hurdles quickly to be seen as a realistic competitor.