In this article, Dan explains how this launch makes SEO even more valuable than it has ever been. He notes how GPT-5 is trained to be SMART but not knowledgeable. Instead of creating a system capable of containing all the answers it needs, OpenAI made a design choice to make it superior in handling the information provided.
In the article, Dan gives an example search for “Does Streamlit have an on/off button”. When responding from its base models, GPT-5 does not give the correct information, while smaller models are able to respond. However, when enabling search in ChatGPT, the model correctly identifies the problem.
This means that this model will be superior in using the search ecosystem to answer questions correctly. If the model improves accuracy through grounding and users opt in, GPT-5 (and future models) will use Google/Bing search as the primary knowledge source for their information. As a result, article SEO will play a much bigger role in being able to influence the results.
The big assumption here is that over time, users prefer to enable search, even if it’s not the default experience. My assumption is that many will still use the default experience (letting ChatGPT choose). It would also be interesting to see if ChatGPT starts using the search function more in user prompts.
