Chatgpt Is Reportedly Scraping Google Search Data To Answer Your Questions - Here's How

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ZDNET's cardinal takeaways

  • Reports uncover that OpenAI uses Google Search information to reply immoderate of users' questions.
  • The topics that usage Google Search information mostly situation news, sports, and financial markets.
  • OpenAI retrieves nan Google Search information utilizing a third-party web-scraping tool.

As much group consult ChatGPT for wide inquiries, reports are pointing to OpenAI, nan AI-powered chatbot's genitor company, leveraging Google Search's scale to supply users pinch answers. 

OpenAI is utilizing Google Search information to thief ChatGPT reply questions, peculiarly astir news, sports, and financial markets, according to The Information. The article said that these existent arena topics are wherever OpenAI's proprietary devices struggle to springiness meticulous responses.

(Disclosure: Ziff Davis, ZDNET's genitor company, revenge an April 2025 suit against OpenAI, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights successful training and operating its AI systems.)

Also: I retested GPT-5's coding skills utilizing OpenAI's guidance - and now I spot it moreover less

Google Search whitethorn beryllium 1 of ChatGPT's biggest rivals. The chatbot has accelerated Search's foray into AI-powered hunt summaries, subsequently lowering postulation from websites that look successful Google's hunt results. 

The Information besides reported that OpenAI retrieves Search information from SerpApi, a web-scraping firm. According to SerpApi's website, nan institution offers information extraction services to AI models, saying that hunt results information champion builds ample datasets for instrumentality learning models. 

Also: Worried astir AI's soaring power needs? Avoiding chatbots won't thief - but 3 things could

Abishek Iyer, a erstwhile Google engineer, conducted an research to beryllium ChatGPT uses Google Search indexes to make information. In his experiment, posted to X, Iyer created a clone word, included it connected a hidden page, and indexed it successful Google's hunt engine, ensuring nan word was excluded from different engines for illustration Bing. Once nan word was indexed successful Google, ChatGPT could specify it utilizing Iyer's nonstop words recovered connected his hidden page.

OpenAI and Google did not instantly respond to a petition for comment.

Previously, OpenAI asserted that its hunt capabilities were powered by an in-house web crawler, and pinch information from publishers nan institution has licensing agreements with. Google was not a collaborated company, denying OpenAI entree to its hunt scale to proviso ChatGPT pinch hunt results.

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