ChatGPT conversations can accumulate quickly if you regularly converse with the AI chatbot. Finding a particular bit of discussion with ChatGPT has been difficult, though, even with well-labeled thread names. OpenAI has released a new search feature for ChatGPT to address that issue. The feature lets you sift through past conversations by looking for specific terms, making it much easier to find bits you don't totally remember or pull up old threads without having to dive deep into the list of threads.

The chat search tool (which should not be confused with the new ChatGPT search feature) is only available to those subscribing to ChatGPT Plus or Teams for now, though free users are supposed to be able to use it starting next month. To use the search tool, you just need to click on the magnifying glass icon at the top of the ChatGPT sidebar. Write in the word or phrase you want to find, and the AI chatbot will sort through your history to locate specific messages. If you have particularly long chat threads, that could save you a lot of time.

ChatGPT search, not SearchGPT

And while OpenAI didn't explicitly call it out, it would be logical for the search tool to learn from your interactions the way it does from your conversations. That might mean getting better at knowing the kind of conversation history you are likely to search for and maybe filtering the results.

The search feature isn't exactly earth-shattering, but it does at least bring ChatGPT to parity with some of its rivals like Google Gemini and Anthropic’s Claude. It fits with some of the other quality-of-life improvements to ChatGPT, including a better chat interface, autocomplete suggestions, and using “/” to immediately command ChatGPT to search online or generate images.

It's been a busy week for OpenAI. Not content with launching Advanced Voice mode on its desktops apps it also released ChatGPT search, for searching the web like a search engine. OpenAI executives then popped into Reddit for an AMA (ask me anything).

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