I pitted ChatGPT search against Perplexity to see which was the best AI
search engine, and the results surprised me

Date:
Tue, 17 Dec 2024 16:41:04 +0000

Description:
ChatGPT search is now free for all, but how does it compare to Perplexity?

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If youve been following the news from 12 Days of OpenAI , youll know that OpenAI has released ChatGPT search to the world as part of its Christmas-themed launch extravaganza.

This means that everybody with a ChatGPT account (you need to be logged in to use it) now gets access to ChatGPT search. OpenAI has also added ChatGPT search to Advanced Voice mode, and made it faster and better on mobile.

Previously, ChatGPT search was only available to ChatGPT Plus subscribers and people who had signed up to the waiting list. Now its available to everyone. All you need to do to use it is go to ChatGPT.com or open the ChatGPT app on your phone, tap or click on the little world icon in the ChatGPT prompt
window and a blue 'Search' label appears, to indicate that whatever you type in next will become a web search, not a typical chatbot interaction. Just
what is an AI search engine anyway?

An AI search engine differs from a conventional search engine, like Google,
in a few key ways. First, you can use natural, conversational language
instead of search terms. Were all so conditioned to using Google these days that we default to a search term-based language when we use it, and not doing that can take a bit of getting used to.

So, for example, you could start off by asking what are the best laptops around right now?, in the same way you would in a conversation, and then when you get the results you can follow up with I want one for gaming and ChatGPT will know what youre talking about, and give you some more results.

Second, there are no adverts. Some people enjoy sponsored content links in searches, since it quite often gives you a link to exactly what youre looking for, but you wont find any in ChatGPT search. It very much reminds me of the early, simpler days of Google. Perplexity vs ChatGPT

The concept of an AI search engine isnt that new, in fact theres another contender in the field that has been doing it for longer than ChatGPT has,
and thats Perplexity . Perplexity is perhaps the original AI search engine. From the start it was designed to search the web and find results, then give you an accessible, and conversational answer.

Now we have two AI search engines going head to head, so its natural to want to compare them. I picked a range of subjects to ask both about, and I was quite shocked by the results.

I started with: I love pizza, are there any good pizza restaurants near me?

I was a bit surprised when both search engines initially recommended restaurants that were in my nearest city, rather than local to me; however, after I told them exactly where I lived I got better results and very
similar results from both. In fact they recommended exactly the same restaurants. What really surprised me was the amount of detail I got from Perplexity a lot more than I got with ChatGPT search. ChatGPT search
results: Uncluttered, plain and simple, but unexciting? (Image credit:
OpenAI) Perplexity: Nicely organized results, lots of information, and colorful pictures! (Image credit: Perplexity)

On web or mobile, ChatGPTs search results appear as quite a boring text-based list. You get a simple description of each restaurant and a link to its website; that's it. In contrast Perplexity gives you a lot more information, and it's a lot more interesting to look, at since each result is broken down into subheadings in this case Address, Highlights, Features and Rating.
There are links to the websites, plus to the reviews online. You can choose
to show all the sources in a list on the right-hand side of the page, where you also get a selection of images of the subject you're searching for.

It was the same when I tried other searches like, Who will be the next James Bond?, or What laptop should I buy for Christmas?. The ChatGPT search results were sparse and lacking in detail, while the Perplexity results had many more links to sources, and just felt more fleshed out and informed.

My overall recommendation? Perplexity is better. Both search engines produced similar results in terms of the sources found, but Perplexity presents the information in a better way, and with more detail that makes it easy to progress your search to the next thing youre likely to be looking for, like a review.

Sorry, ChatGPT search youre good, but youre still new to this game, and Perplexity has the edge right now. You might also like... Between Perplexitys new macOS app and ChatGPTs search launch, conversational search just got a
lot more fun Perplexitys new Buy with Pro is the perfect AI-powered shopping assistant for Black Friday I tried ChatGPT Search and now I might never
Google again



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Link to news story: https://www.techradar.com/computing/artificial-intelligence/i-pitted-chatgpt-s earch-against-perplexity-to-see-which-was-the-best-ai-search-engine-and-the-re sults-shocked-me


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