ChatGPT Improves Search, Adds WhatsApp Support for Instant Answers

OpenAI has announced some major upgrades to ChatGPT, including better shopping features, smarter search, and even support through WhatsApp.

Better Shopping in ChatGPT

OpenAI is rolling out a new shopping experience that makes it faster and easier to find and compare products inside ChatGPT. The company highlighted the following improvements:

• Improved product search results
• Visual details like pricing, images, and reviews
• Direct links to buy items (products are picked independently, not ads)

These shopping upgrades are starting to roll out today for everyone — Plus, Pro, Free, and even users who aren’t logged in. OpenAI says it’ll take a few days to complete the rollout.

You Can Now Message ChatGPT on WhatsApp

OpenAI also launched a new way to use ChatGPT by sending a WhatsApp message to 1-800-ChatGPT (+1-800-242-8478). This is actually pretty cool after testing it out. With WhatsApp on your home screen most of the time it’s faster and easier to just send a message asking for an update. It also cites sources in the answers.

Users can now ask questions, get real-time sports scores, and receive up-to-date answers — all through WhatsApp wherever ChatGPT is available (so that means, iPhone and Mac for example).

Smarter Search and Citations

ChatGPT search is getting a boost too, with:

• Trending searches to help you stay updated
• Autocomplete suggestions to speed up typing
• Improved citations, showing multiple sources when needed, plus a new “highlight” feature that clearly connects parts of an answer to its source

OpenAI shared that search has become one of ChatGPT’s fastest-growing features, with over 1 billion web searches handled just in the past week, which is pretty darn impressive.