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In this photo illustration, the OpenAI logo is displayed on a mobile phone screen with a photo of Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI.

Didem Mente | Anadolu | Getty Images

OpenAI on Thursday launched a search feature within ChatGPT, its viral chatbot, that positions the high-powered artificial intelligence startup to better compete with search engines like Google, Microsoft‘s Bing and Perplexity.

ChatGPT search offers up-to-the-minute sports scores, stock quotes, news, weather and more, powered by real-time web search and partnerships with news and data providers, according to the company. It began beta-testing the search engine, called SearchGPT, in July.

The release could have implications for Google as the dominant search engine. Since the launch of ChatGPT in November 2022, Alphabet investors have been concerned that OpenAI could take market share from Google in search by giving consumers new ways to seek information online. 

Shares of Alphabet were down about 1% following the news.

OpenAI’s ChatGPT search

OpenAI

The move also positions OpenAI as more of a competitor to Microsoft and its businesses. Microsoft has invested close to $14 billion in OpenAI, yet OpenAI’s products directly compete with Microsoft’s AI and search tools, such as Copilot and Bing.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman wrote Thursday in a post on X that search is his “favorite feature we have launched” in ChatGPT since the chatbot’s original debut.

OpenAI says users can “search in a more natural, intuitive way” and ask follow-up questions “just like you would in a conversation.” The search model is a fine-tuned version of OpenAI’s most powerful AI model yet, GPT-4o, and is fueled in part by third-party search providers and content provided by news industry partners.

“I find it to be a way faster/easier way to get the information I’m looking for,” Altman said in a Reddit AMA on Thursday. “I think we’ll see this especially for queries that require more complex research. I also look forward to a future where a search query can dynamically render a custom web page in response!”

OpenAI wrote in a Thursday blog post that it used feedback from its SearchGPT prototype to build out the feature and that it plans to “keep improving search, particularly in areas like shopping and travel, and leverage the reasoning capabilities of the OpenAI o1 series to do deeper research.”

ChatGPT will “automatically search the web based on what you ask,” according to an OpenAI blog post. Users can manually click the web search icon within ChatGPT to search if they choose.

Chats now include links to sources like articles or blog posts, which users can access by clicking the “Sources” button below the response to open a sidebar. OpenAI said it collaborated with its news partners, including The Associated Press, Reuters, Axel Springer, Condé Nast, Hearst, Dotdash Meredith, the Financial Times, News Corp., Le Monde, The Atlantic, Time and Vox Media.

OpenAI’s ChatGPT search

OpenAI

All ChatGPT Plus and Team users, as well as members of SearchGPT’s waitlist, can access ChatGPT search starting Thursday, according to an OpenAI blog post. ChatGPT Enterprise and Edu users will get access in the next few weeks, and the product will roll out to users of ChatGPT’s free version “over the coming months,” per OpenAI.

OpenAI closed its latest funding round earlier this month at a valuation of $157 billion, including the $6.6 billion the company raised from an extensive roster of investment firms and Big Tech companies. It also received a $4 billion revolving line of credit, bringing its total liquidity to more than $10 billion. OpenAI expects about $5 billion in losses on $3.7 billion in revenue this year, CNBC confirmed in September with a person familiar with the situation.

OpenAI has in recent months experienced some controversy around its upcoming transition to a for-profit structure, as well as a string of executive departures. Jan Leike, a former safety team leader at the company, wrote on X while resigning that “safety culture and processes have taken a backseat to shiny products” at the company.

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Amazon’s Zoox robotaxi unit issues second software recall in a month after San Francisco crash

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Amazon's Zoox robotaxi unit issues second software recall in a month after San Francisco crash

A Zoox autonomous robotaxi in San Francisco, California, US, on Wednesday, Dec. 4, 2024.

David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Amazon‘s Zoox robotaxi unit issued a voluntary recall of its software for the second time in a month following a recent crash in San Francisco.

On May 8, an unoccupied Zoox robotaxi was turning at low speed when it was struck by an electric scooter rider after braking to yield at an intersection. The person on the scooter declined medical attention after sustaining minor injuries as a result of the collision, Zoox said.

“The Zoox vehicle was stopped at the time of contact,” the company said in a blog post. “The e-scooterist fell to the ground directly next to the vehicle. The robotaxi then began to move and stopped after completing the turn, but did not make further contact with the e-scooterist.”

Zoox said it submitted a voluntary software recall report to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration on Thursday.

A Zoox spokesperson said the notice should be published on the NHTSA website early next week. The recall affected 270 vehicles, the spokesperson said.

The NHTSA said in a statement it had received the recall notice and that the agency “advises road users to be cautious in the vicinity of vehicles because drivers may incorrectly predict the travel path of a cyclist or scooter rider or come to an unexpected stop.”

If an autonomous vehicle continues to move after contact with any nearby vulnerable road user, it risks causing harm or further harm. In the AV industry, General Motors-backed Cruise exited the robotaxi business after a collision in which one of its vehicles injured a pedestrian who had been struck by a human-driven car and was then rolled over by the Cruise AV.

Zoox’s May incident comes roughly two weeks after the company announced a separate voluntary software recall following a recent Las Vegas crash. In that incident, an unoccupied Zoox robotaxi collided with a passenger vehicle, resulting in minor damage to both vehicles.

The company issued a software recall for 270 of its robotaxis in order to address a defect with its automated driving system that could cause it to inaccurately predict the movement of another car, increasing the “risk of a crash.”

Amazon acquired Zoox in 2020 for more than $1 billion, announcing at the time that the deal would help bring the self-driving technology company’s “vision for autonomous ride-hailing to reality.”

While Zoox is in a testing and development stage with its AVs on public roads in the U.S., Alphabet’s Waymo is already operating commercial, driverless ride-hailing services in Phoenix, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Austin, Texas, and is ramping up in Atlanta.

Tesla is promising it will launch its long-delayed robotaxis in Austin next month, and, if all goes well, plans to expand after that to San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Antonio, Texas.

— CNBC’s Lora Kolodny contributed to this report.

WATCH: Tesla’s decade-long journey to robotaxis

Tesla's decade-long journey to robotaxis

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Intuit shares pop 9% on earnings beat, rosy guidance

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Intuit shares pop 9% on earnings beat, rosy guidance

Intuit CEO: This is the fastest organic growth in over a decade

Shares of Intuit popped about 9% on Friday, a day after the company reported quarterly results that beat analysts’ estimates and issued rosy guidance for the full year.

Intuit, which is best known for its TurboTax and QuickBooks software, said revenue in the fiscal third quarter increased 15% to $7.8 billion. Net income rose 18% to $2.82 billion, or $10.02 per share, from $2.39 billion, or $8.42 per share, a year earlier.

“This is the fastest organic growth that we have had in over a decade,” Intuit CEO Sasan Goodarzi told CNBC’s “Closing Bell: Overtime” on Thursday. “It’s really incredible growth across the platform.”

For its full fiscal year, Intuit said it expects to report revenue of $18.72 billion to $18.76 billion, up from the range of $18.16 billion to $18.35 billion it shared last quarter. Analysts were expecting $18.35 billion, according to LSEG.

“We’re redefining what’s possible with [artificial intelligence] by becoming a one-stop shop of AI-agents and AI-enabled human experts to fuel the success of consumers and small and mid-market businesses,” Goodarzi said in a release Thursday.

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Goldman Sachs analysts reiterated their buy rating on the stock and raised their price target to $860 from $750 on Thursday. The analysts said Intuit’s execution across its core growth pillars is “reinforcing confidence” in its growth profile over the long term.

The company’s AI roadmap, which includes the introduction of AI agents, will add additional upside, the analysts added.

“In our view, Intuit stands out as a rare asset straddling both consumer and business ecosystems, all while supplemented by AI-prioritization,” the Goldman Sachs analysts wrote in a note.

Analysts at Deutsche Bank also reiterated their buy rating on the stock and raised their price target to $815 from $750.

They said the company’s results were “reassuring” after a rocky two years and that they feel more confident about its ability to grow the consumer business.

“Longer term, we continue to believe Intuit presents a unique investment opportunity and we see its platform approach powering accelerated innovation with leverage, thus enabling sustained mid-teens or better EPS growth,” the analysts wrote in a Friday note.

WATCH: Intuit CEO: This is the fastest organic growth in over a decade

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Why Trump’s iPhone tariff threat might not be enough to bring production to the U.S.

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Why Trump's iPhone tariff threat might not be enough to bring production to the U.S.

FILE PHOTO: Apple CEO Tim Cook escorts U.S. President Donald Trump as he tours Apple’s Mac Pro manufacturing plant with in Austin, Texas, U.S., November 20, 2019.

Tom Brenner | Reuters

The once-solid relationship between President Donald Trump and Apple CEO Tim Cook is breaking down over the idea of a U.S.-made iPhone.

Last week, Trump said he “had a little problem with Tim Cook,” and on Friday, he threatened to slap a 25% tariff on iPhones in a social media post.

Trump is upset with Apple’s plan to source the majority of iPhones sold in the U.S. from its factory partners in India, instead of China. Cook officially confirmed this plan earlier this month during earnings.

Trump wants Apple to build iPhones for the U.S. market in the U.S. and has continued to pressure the company and Cook.

“I have long ago informed Tim Cook of Apple that I expect their iPhone’s that will be sold in the United  States of America will be manufactured and built in the United States, not India, or anyplace else,” Trump posted on Truth Social on Friday.

Analysts said it would probably make more sense for Apple to eat the cost rather than move production stateside.

“In terms of profitability, it’s way better for Apple to take the hit of a 25% tariff on iPhones sold in the US market than to move iPhone assembly lines back to US,” wrote Apple supply chain analyst Ming-Chi Kuo on X.

UBS analyst David Vogt said that the potential 25% tariffs were a “jarring headline,” but that they would only be a “modest headwind” to Apple’s earnings, dropping annual earnings by 51 cents per share, versus a prior expectation of 34 cents per share under the current tariff landscape.

Experts have long held that a U.S.-made iPhone is impossible at worst and highly expensive at best.

Analysts have said that made in U.S.A. iPhones would be much more expensive, CNBC previously reported, with some estimates ranging between $1,500 to $3,500 to buy one at retail. Labor costs would certainly rise.

But it would also be logistically complicated.

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Supply chains and factories take years to build out, including installing equipment and staffing up. Parts that Apple imported to the United States for assembly might be subject to tariffs as well.

Apple started manufacturing iPhones in India in 2017 but it was only in recent years that the region was capable of building Apple’s latest devices.

“We believe the concept of Apple producing iPhones in the US is a fairy tale that is not feasible,” wrote Wedbush analyst Dan Ives in a note on Friday.

Other analysts were wary about predicting how Trump’s threat ultimately plays out. Apple might be able to strike a deal with the administration — despite the eroding relationship — or challenge the tariffs in court.

For now, most of Apple’s most important products are exempt from tariffs after Trump gave phones and computers a tariff waiver — even from China — in April, but Apple doesn’t know how the Trump administration’s tariffs will ultimately play out beyond June.

“We’re skeptical,” that the 25% tariff will materialize, wrote Wells Fargo analyst Aaron Rakers.

He wrote that Apple could try to preserve its roughly 41% gross margin on iPhones by raising prices in the U.S. by between $100 or $300 per phone.

It’s unclear how Trump intends to target Apple’s India-made iPhones. Rakers wrote that the administration could put specific tariffs on phone imports from India.

Apple’s operations in India continue to expand.

Foxconn, which assembles iPhones for Apple, is building a new $1.5 billion factory in India that could do some iPhone production, the Financial Times reported Thursday.

Apple declined to comment on Trump’s post.

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