- ChatGPT Search combines its vast LLM knowledge and recent information from the web to quickly summarize information.
- However, its use case is limited to informational queries where users want to gain knowledge and ask follow-up questions.
- For navigational, local, and shopping queries, Google Search is far better than ChatGPT Search.
OpenAI recently launched its AI-powered ChatGPT Search to challenge Google’s dominance in the search engine space. In fact, OpenAI also released an extension to change the default search engine to ChatGPT Search in web browsers. While the competition is heating up, we have compared ChatGPT Search and Google Search to find out whether OpenAI can stand up to Google. On that note, let’s go through our analysis.
1. Informational Queries
Informational queries are those kind of search queries where users seek information, often requiring follow-up questions. For example, questions such as “why is the sky blue” or “when is Coldplay performing” or “diabetes symptoms” are informational queries.
For these kinds of questions, ChatGPT Search stands out. Coupled with LLM’s rich knowledge and the latest data from the web, ChatGPT Search does a splendid job explaining things. And since it has a chat interface, users are well-suited to ask follow-up questions and gain more knowledge along the way.
On the other side, Google’s newly integrated AI Overview also curates data from the web and summarizes them neatly. In the past, AI Overview suggested some strange answers, but Google seems to have fixed it to a large extent.
And in case, you prefer 10 blue links, you can explore them right below. Google’s advantage is that it displays results from webpages, YouTube videos, images, latest news articles, journals, blogs, and more.
While ChatGPT largely offers answers in text, Google Search allows you to check out relevant videos, images, and recent news around the topic. It also shows dedicated infographics and knowledge graphs to help the user. Overall, for informational queries, it’s down to user preference, but I still prefer Google Search because I have access to diverse multimedia resources.
2. Navigational Queries
During my testing, I installed OpenAI’s official extension and it changed the default search engine to ChatGPT Search in Chrome. I was keen to test out a promising alternative to Google, but soon my excitement faded. Turns out, I perform a lot of navigational queries like opening an official website through Google Search, looking for a Wikipedia article, or trying to find an old piece I read sometime back.
Basically, you are not looking for information, but aiming to reach a specific destination. For these kinds of search queries, ChatGPT Search is quite limiting, and frankly, it’s not designed for this use case. You don’t want an LLM-generated answer to open Twitter or Instagram. You just want to click a link. That’s all.
While ChatGPT Search also provides links on top, the experience is relatively slow. I couldn’t force myself to use ChatGPT Search, and quickly turned to Google to find web links.
3. Transactional Queries
Now, coming to transactional queries where people search to purchase something on the internet. People usually search “buy iPhone 16”, “hotels in Paris” or “order grocery.” Here again, ChatGPT Search generates a response using its language model and adds a link to the top. On the other hand, Google shows official as well as e-commerce listings from third-party websites where you can directly place an order.
I tried again and looked for hotels. ChatGPT Search displayed six hotels in an interactive map, but since it lacks user reviews and other key information, I didn’t find the listing helpful. Simply put, for online shopping, ChatGPT Search falls short. OpenAI should work on something like Perplexity’s Pro shopping feature where it shows products in a grid with sources right below.
4. Local Searches
Coming to local searches, Google has a massive advantage because of Maps integration. Whether you are on the web or mobile, Google displays accurate results near your location. For search queries like “pharmacy near me” or “best places to visit in Paris”, Google Search is an incredible tool. Coupled with user reviews from Maps, people find Google Search to be more reliable.
OpenAI has also integrated Maps into ChatGPT Search, but in my testing, I found it limiting. If you have updated the ChatGPT memory about your location in the past, it will fetch that location to show you local results. It does show a map preview, but it’s not customized to your real-time location. Overall, the experience is not personalized and I wouldn’t use it for local searches.
5. Current Events
One of the key talking points of ChatGPT Search is that it now has access to the web including many partner media outlets for fetching current information from around the world. So be it current events, sports scores, trending topics, or checking weather, ChatGPT Search can do it all. That said, the response is again text-heavy.
I searched “Arsenal vs Juventus” in ChatGPT Search and it started giving information from 2005. Only at the end, it mentioned the recent match. In contrast, Google Search understands the query and shows the recent scorecard in a neat table, with the option to view the match recap.
For weather status, ChatGPT Search does a good enough job, but again it’s not personalized to your real-time location. You get real-time weather information for the location it remembers from its memory.
6. Product Comparison
As for product comparison, ChatGPT Search is simply better than Google. I searched “iPhone 16 Pro vs S24 Ultra” in ChatGPT Search and it gave me the pros and cons, detailing the two devices in bullet points. Surprisingly, it didn’t hallucinate and the information was quite accurate. I even prompted it to create a table comparing both devices and it did a great job.
On the other hand, Google Search showed comparisons from various outlets. AI Overview didn’t kick in here. This is where ChatGPT Search shines as it can fetch information and summarize them in a user-friendly manner. I would say for product comparison, ChatGPT Search is a far better product.
7. Research
While there are many AI tools for research, I still prefer ChatGPT because of its vast knowledge. And now that it has access to the web, it can pull recent scientific papers and journals and summarize them quickly. In my usage, I have found ChatGPT Search to be a great companion for research work.
Often, I want to learn about the history behind a technology and ChatGPT has delivered every single time. Recently, I learned about GPU architecture in detail using ChatGPT Search. Not to mention, you can ask follow-up questions to find recent information on the subject and dive deeper to gain more knowledge. On Google, you have to manually search and find key information, but ChatGPT Search makes it quick and easy.
The only issue is hallucination, but so far, I have seen ChatGPT hallucinating much less than before. You always have the option to click on the cited link and verify the information by yourself. I know it becomes a hassle, but that’s the only reliable way to use ChatGPT as a research companion.
ChatGPT Search Can’t Match Google Search Yet
Google has been around for over two decades, and it has become the default interface to browse the web and find information. Notably, Google has shaped user behavior on how to go about finding things on the internet. Breaking this deeply ingrained user habit won’t be an easy feat for OpenAI.
Let me be clear, I felt restricted when I made ChatGPT Search my default search engine. It somehow felt limiting, having to deal with text results largely. Google Search feels like an open experience, having access to multimedia resources.
Having said that, ChatGPT Search is great for informational queries where users want to learn and gain more knowledge. Apart from that, for research work and product comparisons too, you can rely on ChatGPT Search. Overall, it’s a long way to go before ChatGPT Search can match Google Search.
