ChatGPT Search uses sources that are not OpenAI partners

At the launch of its new search engine, OpenAI advertised that it had entered into partnerships with various media. Now it turns out that ChatGPT Search also uses other sources. The backgrounds.

OpenAI has launched its own search engine. Instead of only answering user questions with learned information, ChatGPT Search can also access external sources such as news articles and blog posts.

So that it is clear which sources the language model used in its online search, they are indicated in the sidebar of the respective chat. With one click, users can go to the websites from which the information in the answer comes.

ChatGPT Search uses these sources – even without a media partnership

To ensure ChatGPT Search provides the most up-to-date, high-quality answers, OpenAI has partnered with news and data providers including Associated Press, Condé Nast, Financial Times, Reuters, The World and the Axel Springer publishing house. However, as it turns out, the chatbot also uses media with which the operator has not made a deal.

This was stated by the Austrian online magazine, among others Trending Topics firmly. To answer the question about the current status of coalition negotiations in Austria, ChatGPT, for example, used information from The standard, ORF.at, Kurier.at, oe24.at or APA News. The AI ​​also quoted numerous German and Swiss media, including ARD, ZDF, Stern and taz.

This is how ChatGPT searches for information

A possible explanation for this is that OpenAI uses multiple web crawlers and user agents to execute actions for the respective products. While the OAI SearchBot specifically searches for content, there is also the GPTBot, which generally crawls content for training OpenAI's AI models. The so-called robots are triggered either automatically or by user requests.

According to OpenAI, the company lets each webmaster control how websites and content work with the AI. You can block both crawlers from your website using robots.txt tags.

Currently only ChatGPT Plus and Team users have access to the new search engine. In the future, approval for companies and educational institutions will also follow. In the coming months it is planned that all users of the free version will also have access to ChatGPT Search.

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