About ChatGPT Search

Posted on Edited on Word count in article: 1.7k Reading time ≈ 3 mins.

On November 1st, OpenAI officially launched ChatGPT Search. After using it for one day, I must say I can’t live without it. Here is an introduction to this excellent feature.

Usage Restrictions

  1. Currently available only to Plus, Team, and SearchGPT waitlist users.
  2. Enterprise and educational users will gain access in the coming weeks.
  3. Free users will need to wait several more months.

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Usage Instructions

  1. App users can directly enable Search within the app, allowing questions to be searched online.
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  1. The web version is similar; Search must be enabled manually.

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  1. To facilitate the use of the web version, OpenAI also provides a browser extension called ChatGPT search. This extension modifies the browser’s default search engine, so entering keywords and pressing Enter in the address bar will directly lead to ChatGPT and enable online search.

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URL

A quick analysis of the search URL is as follows.

1
https://chatgpt.com/?q={query}&hints=search

Usage Tips

The official documentation does not specify usage limits for Search, but practical testing shows a limit below 4o. When this limit is exceeded, the online search stops working and falls back to the AI’s internal corpus for answers, which may have time constraints.

As of May 13th 2024, Plus users will be able to send up to 80 messages every 3 hours on GPT-4o and up to 40 messages every 3 hours on GPT-4. We may reduce the limit during peak hours to keep GPT-4 and GPT-4o accessible to the widest number of people.

Advantages

Due to the online nature, the information is up-to-date. The current experience with 4o+ connected capabilities remains fast and impressive.

Disadvantages

  1. Other models like o1 do not currently support Search. I’m looking forward to implementing this soon, improving the logic reasoning capability and speed and making AI responses more accurate.
  2. Actual usage shows the limit is below 4o. Hopefully, the usage cap can be increased, as it currently feels insufficient.

At the end

Overall, it is excellent, and I recommend that everyone try it.