ChatGPT Search is now free for everyone, no OpenAI account required – is it time to ditch Google?

• ChatGPT Search no longer requires an OpenAI account
• You can access the AI search engine for free without logging in
• ChatGPT Search lets you browse the web directly from within the world's most popular chatbot

ChatGPT Search is now available to everyone, regardless of whether you're signed into an OpenAI account or not – and that could increase the number of people who are switching from traditional search engines like Google.

OpenAI announced the major update on X, bringing ChatGPT Search to the masses, without creating an account or giving any personal information to the world leaders in AI.

ChatGPT Search is a search engine powered by, you guessed it, ChatGPT. It allows you to quickly search the web in the same way you would with Google Search, but get more in-depth results and summaries alongside sources. OpenAI says, "ChatGPT can search the web and get you fast, timely answers with links to relevant web sources directly in ChatGPT. ChatGPT will choose to search the web based on what you ask, or you can manually choose to search by clicking the web search icon."

Until now, ChatGPT Search was completely free to use but you needed to sign into an OpenAI account before being able to look anything up. Now, users can use it just by accessing ChatGPT.com.

This is an excellent addition to ChatGPT, which has been free to use without an OpenAI account for a while and could be the turning point for AI search engines as more and more people look for Google alternatives.

ChatGPT Search will roll out to logged-out users over the next few days, so if you don't see the Search icon under your prompt today, try again tomorrow!

Is it time to ditch Google Search?

ChatGPT Search is built into ChatGPT and wants to make the AI chatbot your go-to for all your information. In the past, ChatGPT would have a knowledge cut-off date that meant you couldn't ask for information about things that were happening in the world at the time of your prompt. With ChatGPT Search that has completely changed, and ChatGPT can now give you up-to-date information on everything from world politics to the latest sports scores.

Google Search is engrained in society, most of the world's population with access to the internet use Google on a daily, if not hourly basis. OpenAI's alternative is an excellent option for those who want more from a search engine but I find myself opting to use my trusty ol' buddy Google more often than ChatGPT Search, even if it's not quite as knowledgeable.

The joy of the internet is curating your own sources and choosing where you want to get information from. As it stands, ChatGPT Search's approach doesn't really work for me as I want to be in control of what I consume, and having a summary from multiple sources doesn't always give me that. ChatGPT Search is still in its infancy, and it's bound to improve over time. If you haven't ever tried an AI-powered search engine before, there's never been a better time. But is it time to ditch Google Search? I'm not convinced.

You may also like

• I tried ChatGPT Search and now I might never Google again
• Is DeepSeek AI safe to use? Think twice before you download DeepSeek for the time being
• Want to try DeepSeek without the privacy worries? Perplexity AI just launched it on its iOS and web apps