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OpenAI is reportedly gearing up to announce a search product powered by artificial intelligence on Monday that could threaten Google\u2019s dominance. That target date, provided to Reuters<\/em><\/a> by \u201ctwo sources familiar with the matter,\u201d would time the announcement a day before Google kicks off its annual I\/O conference<\/a>, which is expected to focus on the search giant\u2019s own AI model offerings like Gemini<\/a> and Gemma<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n This new rumor tracks with earlier reports from both Bloomberg<\/em><\/a> and The Information<\/em><\/a> <\/em>that also suggest OpenAI is developing an AI-based product capable of searching the internet. According to Bloomberg<\/em>, OpenAI\u2019s search feature will be built into its ChatGPT chatbot and include citations, while The Information<\/em> reports OpenAI\u2019s search service could be \u201cpartly powered by Bing.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n OpenAI previously attempted to give ChatGPT access to live web data via ChatGPT plugins<\/a>, which have since been retired in favor of GPTs<\/a>. People rapidly adopted ChatGPT for information-gathering tasks after it was introduced in November 2022, but the chatbot \u2014 like all bots built upon LLMs \u2014 has a poor reputation for providing accurate<\/a> or up-to-date information.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Whether or not these new OpenAI rumors bear fruit next week, Google knows its reign over the search industry is under threat. \u201cIt\u2019s not like life is going to be hunky-dory, forever. If there\u2019s a clear and present market reality, we need to twitch faster, like the athletes twitch faster,\u201d Google search boss Prabhakar Raghavan warned employees in a meeting reported by CNBC<\/em><\/a> last month.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cPeople come to us because we are trusted,\u201d said Raghavan. \u201cThey may have a new gizmo out there that people like to play with but they still come to Google to verify what they see there because it is the trusted source and it becomes more critical in this era of generative AI.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n OpenAI is seemingly attempting to build off that trust, with sources telling The Verge<\/em><\/a> this week that the company is aggressively trying to poach Google employees to work on its own search offering. And OpenAI isn\u2019t the only AI-focused threat bearing down on Google \u2014 Perplexity<\/a>, a $1 billion start-up founded by a former OpenAI researcher, said that its own AI-based search product had attracted 10 million monthly active users<\/a> back in January.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Google is facing these challenges alongside fighting the DOJ\u2019s ongoing antitrust case<\/a> regarding its dominance in search. If OpenAI is<\/em> planning to enter the search game on the eve of Google\u2019s I\/O event then it\u2019s likely doing so to send a message \u2014 one that Google would do well to take seriously, given ChatGPT is one of (if not the<\/em>) fastest-growing services<\/a> the world has ever seen.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n