Google Search might have competition from ChatGPT in just one week

There are rumors that a new ChatGPT-powered search website will launch on May 9th that will be a challenger to the Google Search website. A Reddit user discovered that an SSL certificate that authenticates the identity of a website has been created for the domain name search.chatgpt.com. Trying this domain name on your browser returns a "Not found" page instead of showing a 404 error or domain error which increases the odds that the domain is going to be valid soon.

The reason why a ChatGPT search engine makes sense has to do with major OpenAI investor Microsoft's inability to compete against Google Search with Bing. According to Android Authority, there has been speculation in The Information about OpenAI developing a search engine website to compete with Google Search that would be partly powered by Bing. 

We could see AI-generated summaries which certainly would be useful. And AI-based search could deliver faster results. This would be similar to Google's Search Generative Experience (SGE) which puts AI summaries and answers right at the center of the search tool.

Not too many details are available about the rumored ChatGPT website but some on Reddit are already coming up with features that they would like to see on a ChatGPT search tool. One Redditor said, "Yeah if AI could evaluate source quality that would probably be amazing. As in determining when a university level professor writes about something versus someone's personal blog and then de-ranking them."

Another Reddit subscriber is worried about the monetization of a ChatGPT-powered search tool with ads and sponsored results. You can't expect Microsoft and OpenAI to read that Google grossed over $46 billion from Google Search in the first quarter and not dream of the day when it can generate such revenue from search.

Several posts on Reddit were from subscribers who are excited about a ChatGPT search website with one person writing, "Man Google might be in trouble." That remains to be seen. But if this rumor is legit, Google Search could have a brand new competitor one week from today.