SearchGPT Vs. Perplexity: Which One Can Replace Google?

Either way, we know they're both better than AI Overview.

Intro

OpenAI finally unveiled SearchGPT and the entire internet... Well, it reacted quite calmly (not counting Alphabet shares, which fell by 3%). I don't see hundreds of discussions on Reddit, speculation on Twitter, and insights from popular media. Is this how it's supposed to be?

We got access to the closed beta and now have something to discuss with you. Let's take a look at the first reviews and results of the search engine from OpenAI, test it against Perplexity, and try to determine: is the era of Google over?

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First Results & Reactions

I won't go over the main features and functions of SearchGPT here. You probably know everything yourself (and if not, you will find all the necessary information in this post). Let's start with a funny thing: SearchGPT screwed up in the first demo video.

In one of the pre-recorded videos, a user enters the search “music festivals in boone north carolina in august” into the SearchGPT interface. The AI then brings up a list of festivals it says will be held in Boone in August. The first one is An Appalachian Summer Festival, which, according to SearchGPT, has a series of art events from July 29 to August 16 this year.

However, the festival actually began on June 29, and its last concert will take place on July 27. The festival's box office will be officially closed from July 29 to August 16. This hallucination required fact-checking, so many users just didn't notice it.

Errors like this severely undermine the desire to use AI search engines. If we have to double-check it every time, what's the point? On the other hand, we can commend OpenAI for being honest.

This fiasco proves that the video really shows the AI at work.

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As for reactions, like I said at the beginning, SearchGPT is neither enthusiastic nor disappointed. If we close our eyes to the YouTube and Twitter bloggers who talk about the search revolution (you know, those guys are always excited), then we see what some experts say.

For example, entrepreneur and digital marketing expert Neil Patel noted that the success of ChatGPT does not guarantee success for SearchGPT, and its features do not offer a serious advantage over regular Google searches.

You'll find the full post here.

At the same time, Answera AI founder Paul Couvert said that he has already made SearchGPT his default browser. He admitted that the chatbot has some serious limitations, including poor results when searching for images and online shopping.

You can read the entire thread here.

I should mention here that it is important to remember that SearchGPT is in beta testing and is only available to 10,000 users. Therefore, it is pretty difficult to take an objective picture of the quality of this chatbot right now.

Well, let's move on to our comparison.

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Our Comparison | SearchGPT Vs. Perplexity

If Google had tried a little harder, you might see a comparison of three AI-powered search engines at once here. But AI Overview, which advised pregnant women to smoke two or three cigarettes a day and depressed people to jump off the Golden Gate Bridge, is not available now. We can only guess why it was disabled.

Perhaps it was about the interface.

But you can try to establish the cause with this post:

Google's AI Search is a Disaster

So today, we will compare SearchGPT to a more robust solution: Perplexity.

Admittedly, my sympathies beforehand are a bit on the side of this chatbot. I have been using Perplexity for over a year; I see its progress and know it can already replace the Google search engine in many issues. But all the better: OpenAI needs a strong competitor.

To compare SearchGPT and Perplexity, I prepared four questions. They are pretty simple and are related to four conventional categories: financials, education, trends, and politics. With their help, we will try to find out how SearchGPT and Perplexity process questions and in what form they offer answers.

I'll comment briefly on the results, and you can decide who you like best.