The company said in a press release on Monday that OpenAI’s AI-powered rival Google Search’s Chatgpt Search is getting enhanced shopping features, including the ability to search for products, compare options and buy directly in Chatgpt.
Users will see personalized suggestions, visual product details, pricing and product reviews. Like other ChatGpt queries, ChatGpt searches will retain memories of users’ past shopping experiences over the next few weeks and consider context in past conversations to help tailor-made personalized experiences.
Read more: Best AI Chatbots of 2025
CHATGPT Search will also provide direct links to the product. The shopping experiment will include products in fashion, beauty, household goods and electronics, and as it learns more about the shopping category can be expanded. Openai said it won’t earn any membership income.
This feature is available to all CHATGPT users (including those not logged in) through the GPT-4O model. Openai said the changes are now available at 4O speeds and will be available for Chatgpt Plus, Pro, free and logged in users starting Monday.
Representatives of OpenAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
(Disclosure: CNET’s parent company Ziff Davis filed a lawsuit against OpenAI in April, accusing Ziff Davis of infringing on Ziff Davis’ copyright in training and operating its AI system.)
Search Status
According to StatCounter, online search is a large business, and Google is currently the king of search with a market share of 89.74%. With the launch of Chatgpt at the end of 2022, more and more people are turning to AI chatbots to meet their online search needs.
If traditional online search relies on keywords and users filter through the website to find the information they need, the AI chatbot allows users to ask questions directly and get full answers in the process.
Last year, OpenAI launched a Chatgpt search, a version of its AI Chatbot, which also searched the Internet for the latest information. There are other players in the AI-powered online search game, including PerpeLxity and You.com. Google also adds AI to its core search products through an AI overview, and this experience is still producing false information.
Google sees about 14 billion searches a day. Although Chatgpt sees 500 million active weekly users, its popularity still pales compared to Google. According to Sparktoro, Google currently has 373 times more searches than Chatgpt.
Search earned $198 billion in revenue last year, thanks to ads and shopping suggestions targeting user queries. If Openai does actively monetize shopping advice in the future, it could be consumed in Google’s revenue, as well as the revenue from websites that make money from reviews and recommendations.
ChatGpt search will also get some other improvements. WhatsApp users can now send messages directly to chatgpt in the app. This is a fancy integration considering whatsApp owner Meta has baked Metaai into its app. CHATGPT Search will also allow users to view trend search topics.
The regular version of Chatgpt can also improve citations and can reference multiple sources.
