What is SearchGPT?

How Should I Adjust My Marketing Strategy for SearchGPT?

by Natalie Henley

Alright, I want to take a minute and talk just a little bit about SearchGPT—what it is, what’s going on, and whether you should adjust your marketing strategy for it.

What is SearchGPT?

SearchGPT is a prototype Search Engine that OpenAI is developing. They announced in July that they were working on this, but there’s no public launch date yet. 

The industry is buzzing because this could be a really big deal for marketing, Google, search engine optimization, and search in general. When thinking of SearchGPT vs. a traditional search engine… 

  • It’ll understand more context and natural language 
  • It’ll provide helpful, summarized results from multiple reputable sources 
  • You can get information without having to click to other websites 
  • It’ll hang on to your context and keep pushing to get you a deeper answer 

Google Vs. SearchGPT (Infographic) by volume9

If you haven’t tried Perplexity, I strongly recommend you do. It’ll help you grasp what SearchGPT is trying to do pretty darn fast (and side note, I LOVE Perplexity). 

How Is This Different From AI Overviews? 

When we think about how AI has gone into search, let’s kind of go back a bit. ChatGPT launched, Microsoft partnered with Bing, and Google panicked, starting work on getting AI into search.

Google spent a year developing Search Generated Experience (SGE) and brought AI overviews into search. But. arguable, it’s been a bit of a flop. Meanwhile, Bing hasn’t picked up much market share despite having a strategic partnership with Open AI & ChatGPT.

Why AI and Search Haven’t Worked (Yet)

The challenge with AI in search is that search engines have always worked on a model where someone searches a keyword, and the engine provides listings. Google is likely always going to have that stronghold. 

…But when you try to add AI into that, it gets tricky. Google’s business model is based on keywords and running ads alongside the listings. If they can’t run those ads they likely aren’t going to explore it as an option. 

How Is This Different than AI Overviews? 

AI Search Engines don’t seem to have this ad-based challenge. You can search something like “I need a chart with all the planets’ distances from the Sun.” Instead of hoping one website has all that or relying on AI like Google’s Gemini, Perplexity scans relevant websites and filters the results for you. It gives you relevant, sourced results without ads & without having to click to additional websites, which is awesome.

So the big differences: 

  • Clearer sources and direct links to make verifying data easier 
  • Allows you to ask follow-ups and to dial in the response more 
  • Will provide a detailed answer from a lot of sources, and include images in addition to text 
  • More cooperative with publishers (like news sites) and will give them more ways to control how they appear in SearchGPT 

The Big Shift

SearchGPT wants to build a search engine based on how people actually want information, not one that’s limited by ads or keywords. That’s why Alphabet’s stock dropped the day after they announced it—people think this could chip away at Google’s market share. 

How Should You Adjust Your Marketing Strategies?

There are definitely strategies to get optimized for tools like Perplexity now, which will likely help you with SearchGPT later.

The key is:

  • Organized, well-written content with depth
  • Unique content that gives a perspective others don’t
  • Use things like schema markup and clear headings to make it easy for crawlers to understand your content

Keeping your content fresh and up-to-date is also really important, as SearchGPT is likely going to favor current information.

The Future of SEO

In the bigger picture, I believe we’re seeing a fracturing of the traditional search engine market. People will always have problems and questions, and they’ll turn to the Internet for solutions. But how they search is changing.

We’re seeing users start their searches in marketplaces like Amazon or Walmart, or on social platforms like TikTok and forums like Reddit. This means search engine optimization isn’t just about Google anymore.

How Do you Optimize For the Future? 

As you build your SEO strategy, think about:

  • Who is your core audience? 
  • What questions are you answering?
  • What problems are you solving?
  • Where are your customers going to get that information?

It’s not just about Google SERPS anymore. Ensure your optimization strategy covers all the places your customers might search for you—not just Google.