Does ChatGPT use Google or Bing?
Bing is the only search engine OpenAI names as a provider for ChatGPT search, and it isn't the only source: OpenAI runs its own crawler, OAI-SearchBot, and keeps an index of its own. OpenAI names no Google partnership. Reports that ChatGPT draws on Google's results through a scraping service are unconfirmed.
Checked against the companies' own pages and the reporting it cites on October 20, 2026.
What OpenAI says ChatGPT search uses.
OpenAI's pages describe three sources for ChatGPT's search: partner search providers, its own crawler, and its own index. Only one provider is named.
Partner search providers
ChatGPT search sometimes partners with other search providers. It rewrites a question into one or more targeted queries for them, and may send narrower ones to other providers after reading the first results. For how they handle queries, the help page links to Microsoft's privacy statement and Shopify's privacy policy.[1]
Bing, named for business workspaces
For Enterprise and Edu workspaces, OpenAI says ChatGPT may share search queries, cut off from the account, with the Bing search engine to return web results. Its Healthcare workspaces don't use Bing.[2] No OpenAI page we read names Google as a provider.
Its own crawler, OAI-SearchBot
OAI-SearchBot is used to surface websites in ChatGPT's search results, and sites that opt out of it aren't shown in ChatGPT's search answers, though they can still appear as navigational links.[3] The crawler's own page has its user agent and IP list.
Its own index
For eligible workspaces, offline web search uses OpenAI's indexed and cached web content instead of a live search at the time of each request. A page that isn't in that index or cache can't be retrieved that way, and coverage and freshness vary by site.[4]
Partners' own content
When it launched ChatGPT search in October 2024, OpenAI said it used third-party search providers as well as content provided directly by its partners, with news and data providers behind weather, stocks, sports, news and maps.[5]
What others have said, and how sure it is.
The rest comes from Microsoft, from sworn testimony and from reporting. Each says something different about how sure it is.
2023: Bing as ChatGPT's default search
Microsoft announced in May 2023 that Bing was coming to ChatGPT as the default search experience, with answers grounded by search and web data and carrying citations.[6] That was 17 months before OpenAI launched ChatGPT search in October 2024.
2025: testimony in the Google case
In the remedies trial against Google in April 2025, Nick Turley, who heads ChatGPT at OpenAI, testified that ChatGPT pulls from Bing's search information and that OpenAI had faced significant quality issues with one provider. He said OpenAI asked Google in 2024 for an agreement to use its search, and Google didn't accept. OpenAI's goal of serving 80% of searches from its own index by the end of 2025 was, he said, years away.[7]
Unconfirmed: Google results through a scraper
In August 2025, The Information reported that OpenAI had been using Google search results scraped through SerpApi to answer questions about news, sports and markets, as Tom's Guide relayed. Tom's Guide also describes a former Google engineer's test: pages that only Google had indexed turned up in ChatGPT's answers.[8] We found no OpenAI page that confirms either, so treat it as reported, not documented.
What ChatGPT searched for, in our own runs.
GEOFast keeps the searches the ChatGPT app reports with each answer it tracks. They show what ChatGPT looked for. They don't show which search engine answered.
ChatGPT answers came with the web searches the app ran before answering.
of those ran two searches or more, up to 6 for one answer, as OpenAI's page on query rewriting describes.
of its 481 searches were site: searches, kept to one website, most often a company's own site or docs.
“Which analytics script is the lightest and won't slow down my website?”
- lightweight web analytics script Plausible Umami GoatCounter bundle size performance 2026
- Plausible script 1 KB lightweight analytics official
- Umami tracking script size official lightweight analytics
The 190 ChatGPT answers GEOFast recorded for its two demo projects, questions about AI visibility tools and about web analytics, read from the ChatGPT app signed out, in US English, on October 6 and 7, 2026. 179 of them reported the searches they ran: 481 in all, each counted once per answer.
Limits: two fields, one night of runs, one country. The app reports the words it searched for; nothing in an answer says whether Bing, OpenAI's own index or anyone else returned the results.
What to do, whichever engine answers.
You can't choose which index answers a ChatGPT search. You can make sure every one of them can find you.
Let OAI-SearchBot in first
It's the one step OpenAI documents for appearing in ChatGPT's search results, with your host or CDN letting its traffic through.[1] The AI crawler checker tests both.
Be easy for Bing to find
Bing says its search and AI experiences rest on the same crawling, indexing and ranking, and asks for sitemaps, IndexNow and crawlable links to find pages.[9] If ChatGPT leaves your site out, Bing's index is one of the six things to check.
Answer the searches it writes
In our runs, 134 of ChatGPT's 481 searches asked for something “official”, 89 named a year, and 94 were site: searches, kept to one website. A page of your own that says plainly what your product does and costs is what those searches can land on.
See what it searched for you
Under each tracked answer, GEOFast's dashboard shows the searches the engine ran, and the Sources page groups them by prompt, on Growth, Agency and the trial. They sit beside share of voice, so you can see the words behind an answer that named a competitor.
Questions about ChatGPT's search engine.
Does ChatGPT use Google search results?
Not by any arrangement OpenAI has published. OpenAI's head of ChatGPT testified in April 2025 that Google turned down its 2024 request to use Google's search API. In August 2025, The Information reported that OpenAI was using Google results scraped through SerpApi; we found no OpenAI page that confirms it.
Is ChatGPT search powered by Bing?
In part. Microsoft made Bing ChatGPT's default search in 2023, OpenAI's page for business workspaces says their queries may go to Bing, and OpenAI's head of ChatGPT testified in 2025 that ChatGPT pulls from Bing. Beside Bing, OpenAI runs its own crawler and keeps its own index.
Does ChatGPT have its own search index?
Yes. OpenAI's help page on offline web search says eligible workspaces can use OpenAI's indexed and cached web content instead of a live search. In 2025, OpenAI's head of ChatGPT testified that serving 80% of searches from its own index, a goal for the end of that year, was years away.
What is OAI-SearchBot for if ChatGPT uses Bing?
It collects pages for ChatGPT's search itself, and it decides eligibility: OpenAI says sites that opt out of OAI-SearchBot aren't shown in ChatGPT's search answers, whatever other search engines hold. They can still appear as navigational links. OAI-SearchBot
Can I see what ChatGPT searched for?
Not from OpenAI's help page, which describes a Sources list of cited pages and other relevant links, not the searches behind them. GEOFast keeps the searches the ChatGPT app reports for each answer it tracks: what was searched, never which engine answered.
Where each fact comes from.
Each numbered source is the page a fact comes from: the companies' own help pages and posts, and news reports, read on October 20, 2026. A report is what its sources told a reporter, and the guide says when a company hasn't confirmed it. Help pages change, so check them before you act.
- 1OpenAI: Searching the web with ChatGPThelp.openai.com/en/articles/9237897-searching-the-web-with-chatgpt
- 2OpenAI: ChatGPT search for Enterprise and Eduhelp.openai.com/en/articles/10093903-chatgpt-search-for-enterprise-and-edu
- 3OpenAI: Overview of OpenAI Crawlersdevelopers.openai.com/api/docs/bots
- 4OpenAI: Offline web search for ChatGPT workspaceshelp.openai.com/en/articles/20001203-offline-web-search-for-chatgpt-workspaces
- 5OpenAI: Introducing ChatGPT searchopenai.com/index/introducing-chatgpt-search/
- 6Microsoft: Microsoft Build brings AI tools to the forefront for developersblogs.microsoft.com/blog/2023/05/23/microsoft-build-brings-ai-tools-to-the-forefront-for-developers/
- 7Courthouse News Service: Exec says OpenAI would buy Chrome if judge orders Google breakupcourthousenews.com/exec-says-openai-would-buy-chrome-if-judge-orders-google-breakup/
- 8Tom's Guide: ChatGPT Is Using Google Search To Answer Your Questions — Here’s What We Knowtomsguide.com/ai/chatgpt-is-secretly-using-google-search-data-heres-how
- 9Microsoft: Bing Webmaster Guidelinesbing.com/webmasters/help/webmaster-guidelines-30fba23a
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