I Compared ChatGPT Search and Google, and Google Should Be Worried

For decades, whenever you’ve needed to know something, you’ve googled it. What time’s the Super Bowl? How do you fix a leaky faucet? What’s the difference between the iPhone 16 and the iPhone 15? What will the weather be like tomorrow? Who is Maria Callas?

On top of its original goal of indexing the web, Google has evolved to be able to dig information out of it and serve it up to you without you actually having to visit a website. Try a Google search today, and for quite a few of those questions above, you’ll see the answer at the top of the results—no extra click needed.

Now, generative AI models like ChatGPT are promising to do that job faster, more comprehensively, and more helpfully than Google does—even as Google has added AI answers to its own pages in response. Case in point: OpenAI has just launched ChatGPT web search for Plus subscribers, and free users will get the update soon.

So will we all soon be ChatGPTing rather than Googling when we need to know something? I pitted the current leader in web search against this new arrival, comparing them across a variety of key areas to see what sort of results I’d get—and if I was Google, I’d be worried at how good its AI rival already is.

News, sports, weather

We often use a web search to find out what’s happening in the moment or the near future, so I asked both search engines when my soccer team’s next game was going to take place (and used its nickname to make it harder). Full marks across the board, as Google and ChatGPT both gave me the correct time and date, and even told me what TV channel it will air on.

What about the weather? Again, pretty much level, with both search engines returning a week’s worth of forecast—though the visuals Google used were a bit more useful. You can specify different locations and different times, and both Google and ChatGPT knew my current location (I’m guessing through my IP address).

Then I asked about the Squid Game 2 trailer that recently dropped. Google search has the advantage of a News tab, of course, whereas ChatGPT search is still in its early stages, so I had to specify “news” in my query on the latter. ChatGPT gave me some useful information about the upcoming season, but Google was better at surfacing actual news headlines—and at finding the trailer.

OpenAI says it has signed partnerships with certain news, sports, and weather providers, and generally speaking, ChatGPT search already does a good job here. However, Google still has the edge: It’s got its hooks deeper into the web, it covers a broader range of sources, and it presents more information in its results.

Advice and guides

Next I tested the search engines on getting instructions for a few simple tasks: resetting an iPhone, making an omelette, and cleaning a shower. As you might expect, Google was better at surfacing good-quality web links for the task, while ChatGPT was better at writing out the steps itself, with links back to sources (there’s a debate to be had about which is better for the publishers and human writers supplying the content, but we’ll save that for another day).

As far as I could tell, ChatGPT’s instructions were reliable enough, and all sourced from reputable sites. Google, meanwhile, chose well when it came to its links—and for some search requests would display its AI overview responses as well. For the iPhone question, both Google and ChatGPT summarized Apple’s official instructions using AI, and linked back to the Apple page.

At this stage, Google wins when it comes to displaying additional content beyond web links, including YouTube videos and posts from social media—though ChatGPT will occasionally display a YouTube link too, if it thinks it’s needed. In cases where both search tools showed instructions generated by AI, ChatGPT usually had the more detailed and useful ones, though there often isn’t much to differentiate between them.

Of course, I can only really scrape the surface when it comes to these kinds of searches, and the results (and their quality) are going to vary depending on what you want to do. Which search option you prefer might depend on whether you want a link straight to a website you can trust for advice (for that, Google is still your best bet), or whether you want an AI-generated summary of what you need to do (which is where ChatGPT really excels).

As I’ve already touched on, Google has the advantage when it comes to how deep it can go on the web, and how many additional tools it can call upon. If you search for a specific webcam or coffee machine you want to buy, for instance, Google is much better at including a long list of purchasing options (including sponsored content) alongside its search results.

ChatGPT does offer some purchasing links in its responses, but there aren’t as many of them, and they’re included in the text rather than shown separately. It also doesn’t have Google’s Shopping tab, which lets you narrow down selections based on price, look for specific brands and features, and check user reviews.

Finding a place to go

It’s the same story with places: ChatGPT can make an attempt with searches like “nearby coffee shop,” and it gave me some decent answers when I asked, but it’s not at Google’s level at the moment. For better or for worse, Google knows much more about me, and that can help when it comes to recognizing the sort of places I like, and where I’ve been before.

Google search can seamlessly link out to Google Maps, which helps when looking at reviews or getting directions somewhere. ChatGPT search provides links to sites such as TripAdvisor for reviews, and actually opens Google Maps if you want directions somewhere. While I was impressed with how much shopping and map information ChatGPT has access to already, I’ll still be using Google for these searches for the foreseeable future.

The search interface

Overall, Google remains ahead when it comes to finding information on the web, which is really no surprise: It’s been around since the late ’90s and has had a long time to refine its craft. Where ChatGPT impresses though, is in how clean and straightforward its interface is—and when you’ve grown used to Google search results stuffed with adverts and SEO trickery, it’s quite a refreshing change.

Of course, ChatGPT web search is just getting started. OpenAI can afford to roll out a sleek, user-friendly interface now, and think about making money and putting ads in later. But in terms of how it looks and operates at the moment, I was pleasantly surprised with how well it distills all the noise of the web, presenting answers without any fuss or clutter.

The final verdict: ChatGPT is surprisingly good

For complex, multi-faceted searches, ChatGPT can actually best Google. When I asked “which R.E.M. record had the most troubled production?” ChatGPT gave me the right answer (Fables of the Reconstruction) and the reasons why, whereas Google sent me to pages talking more generally about the worst R.E.M. record. ChatGPT makes it easier to ask follow-up questions too.

I also like the way ChatGPT presents its sources: The links are there if you need them, but displayed subtly, and help to guard against hallucinations (which let’s be honest, are still an issue). While I’m not going to stop Googling anytime soon, I’ll definitely be using ChatGPT regularly for certain types of queries, and there’s no doubt the AI bot has the potential to transform the way we find information online—a shift Google is already quickly trying to prepare for with its own AI offerings.