You can now try ChatGPT Search without paying, but …

OpenAI has finally launched ChatGPT Search for free users after some time being an exclusive feature for paying-only subscribers.

Announced during the Microsoft-backed company’s 12 days of “shipmas,” OpenAI says that the experience is being rolled out already to everyone. But, if you want to try ChatGPT Search as a free subscriber, you still have to log into your ChatGPT account.

The company also revamps Search with a more traditional search engine-like interface mobile, with location-based results featuring images, ratings, and hours. And, there are also faster link previews for certain sites like hotel booking websites.

Combining natural language processing with web searching, ChatGPT Search lets you get fast, timely answers on topics with links to relevant web sources. It’s powered by a fine-tuned version of the GPT-4o model and uses third-party search providers with content from OAI’s partners, like Axel Springer.

OpenAI mentions on its support page that, for accurate results, ChatGPT may share search details and general location data with partners like Bing.

OpenAI also promises that ChatGPT Search is launching within the AI chatbot’s lifelike humanoid Advanced Voice Mode “over the next week.” And for mobile users, ChatGPT will also soon have maps on its apps on both Android and iOS, just like when you search on Google Search.

Elsewhere, the company also launched Sora, its text-to-video model, after months of anticipation. The feature was so much hyped that even competitors like Google also released its counter, Veo 2, which claims that it’s able to create AI videos with up to 4K resolution.