ChatGPT can now conduct real-time web searches

According to OpenAI, ChatGPT can now scan the web for current knowledge, providing answers derived straight from "current and authoritative" sources, which it mentions in its reply. The Browse with Bing function is now available exclusively to those with Plus and Enterprise subscriptions, but the firm claims it will be available to "all users soon."

Microsoft’s Bing Chat on Windows, in the Edge browser, and in third-party browser plugins could already return live information from the web, and so can Google’s Bard in Chrome and other browsers. Both also offer links when searching, as ChatGPT’s Browse with Bing feature now does. Meta just announced at Meta Connect that it will also use Bing to power real-time web results in the Meta AI Assistant it’s adding to WhatsApp, Instagram, and Messenger.

Getting ChatGPT to search the web for you is a little tricky. Although the company gives tutorials for the browser version, I couldn't discover any for the iOS app. But I figured it out. If you have a subscription, the steps are as follows: three dots menu > Settings > New Features > Browse with Bing. Start a new chat, then select GPT-4 and "Browse with Bing." The results of your searches should therefore be from current websites.

It's a touch slow, but it gets the job done. When it answers a question for you, you can compare the answers by clicking the link to the webpage. Now I know that AC/DC may be working on a new album, according to MediaMass - a website I've never heard of! Given the tendency of AI bots to hallucinate, being able to check their origins is a big enhancement that not only means you can truly verify they're not lying to you, but it's also wonderful to give credit where credit is due.

In late June, OpenAI provided the option to access the internet within its ChatGPT iOS app, but immediately removed it. Users figured out how to trick the chatbot into delivering them otherwise paywalled content by just passing it a URL. Since then, OpenAI's automatic crawler, which feeds information to the model powering ChatGPT, has began identifying itself with a user agent so that sites can opt out of its examination by making changes to their Robots.txt file.