OpenAI plans to integrate SearchGPT into ChatGPT by the end of this year. Initially launched as a prototype in July, SearchGPT combines real-time search capabilities with conversational AI providing direct answers, summaries, and contextual insights as opposed to a list of links. The chat interface allows users to ask followup questions and the system links citations to the output ensuring transparency (and the preservation of link-based search).

Varun Shetty, OpenAI’s head of media partnerships, highlighted that the integration will focus on driving “significant incremental traffic from new audiences” to publishers, with no immediate plans for ad revenue sharing. Instead, OpenAI will compensate publishers through increased clicks and traffic.

The shift towards a conversational search model like SearchGPT will change SEO practices. Content strategies will need to adapt, focusing on creating context-rich, engaging content that aligns with user intent rather than simply optimizing for keywords. High-quality content and earned media will play an even more critical role, as SearchGPT prioritizes information from authoritative sources. This could offer brands more opportunities to be featured prominently in AI-generated search responses or it could exacerbate the erosion of trust as search results increasingly become “pay for play.” Time will tell.

Google’s AI Overviews are not the answer. The fact that Google will not properly rank your pages if you opt-out of having your content scraped for AI training means that Google will ultimately be forced (by regulators or by the market itself) to figure out how to get it right.

Perplexity and the half-dozen other chat-based search tools are showing our friends in Mountain View that there’s room for a new type of search – they (Google) are not going to lay down and die over this. Big G will work hard to preserve its $175 Billion of annual search revenue. Get your popcorn, this show is going to be fun to watch.

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