The ability to search for current information was taken offline
Ryan Ozawa2 min read
Your Web3 Gaming Power-Up
Enjoy exclusive benefits with the GG Membership Pass
Decrypt’s Art, Fashion, and Entertainment Hub.
Discover SCENE
Leading artificial intelligence firm OpenAI announced today that users of its ChatGPT generative AI tool will again be able to generate answers to prompts that search the web for the latest information. It's a revival of a powerful feature that was removed from the service in July because it was being used to bypass paywalled content.
The search capability will be handled through the Bing search engine in a partnership with Microsoft, which is a major investor in OpenAI. The company noted the relaunch reflects "useful feedback" from its first attempt.
"Since the original launch of browsing in May, we received useful feedback," OpenAI explained on Twitter. "Updates include following robots.txt and identifying user agents so sites can control how ChatGPT interacts with them."
One of the key advantages of web search capabilities is that it gives AI systems—which typically work with a finite dataset collected up through a specific date—the effective awareness of the present.
"ChatGPT can now browse the internet to provide you with current and authoritative information, complete with direct links to sources. It is no longer limited to data before September 2021," OpenAI explained. "Browsing is particularly useful for tasks that require up-to-date information, such as helping you with technical research, trying to choose a bike, or planning a vacation."
For now, however, the feature is restricted to paying customers.
"Browsing is available to Plus and Enterprise users today, and we’ll expand to all users soon. To enable, choose Browse with Bing in the selector under GPT-4."
Editor's note: this is a developing story and will be updated periodically to reflect the latest information.