AI Search 101
What is ChatGPT?
ChatGPT is a conversational assistant built by OpenAI on its GPT family of large language models. It answers questions, writes and edits text, works with uploaded files, generates images and searches the web, all through ordinary written instructions rather than a specialised interface.
The basics
| Made by | OpenAI |
| Launched | November 2022 |
| Built on | The GPT family of large language models |
| Category | Generative AI assistant |
| Main alternatives | Claude, Gemini, Copilot, Perplexity |
| Relevant to | AI search and answer engine optimisation |
What does GPT stand for?
Generative Pre-trained Transformer. Each word names a design decision.
Generative: it produces new text rather than selecting from options. Pre-trained: the expensive learning happened once, in advance, on a very large corpus, and the same trained model then serves every user. Transformer: the neural network architecture, introduced in 2017, that made training at this scale practical.
How does ChatGPT work?
Underneath, it predicts text. Given the conversation so far, the model produces the next fragment, then the next, each conditioned on everything before it. Fluency is a consequence of that conditioning rather than of any plan.
Two layers sit on top of the raw model and both matter commercially.
Instruction tuning. A base language model completes text; it does not naturally follow requests. Additional training, much of it using human feedback on which responses are better, turns completion into cooperation. This is why the assistant answers a question instead of continuing it.
Tools. The assistant can now search the web, run code, read uploaded files and generate images. When it searches, it is retrieving live pages and writing from what it finds rather than recalling from training, which is why it can discuss recent events and cite sources.
Why does ChatGPT matter for a business?
Two separate reasons, and they are often conflated.
The first is internal: it is a broadly useful tool, and adoption in most organisations arrived through individuals rather than procurement.
The second matters more and is noticed less. ChatGPT now sits between companies and their buyers. When someone asks what a company does, which vendors serve a category, or how two products compare, the assistant answers from what it read. That answer is often a buyer's first impression, and it is assembled from sources the company did not write.
What are its limitations?
Confident errors. The model produces fluent text whether or not the underlying association is sound. Errors arrive in the same register as correct answers, which is what makes them dangerous.
Training cutoff. Knowledge stops at a fixed date unless the assistant searches. Answers about anything recent depend on whether retrieval happened.
Non-determinism. The same question can produce different answers on different runs, so a single check tells you little about what buyers generally see.
Data handling. Consumer tiers may use conversations to improve models. Business tiers and the API generally do not. Which tier a team uses is a governance question worth answering explicitly.
How ChatGPT is used in marketing
Production. Drafting and editing, adapting one asset into several formats, translation, and generating variants for testing.
Analysis. Summarising research, clustering open-text feedback, and reading long documents for the parts that matter.
Distribution. Monitoring what the assistant says about the company and its category, because for a growing share of buyers that answer is the first description they encounter.
How this impacts your business
A language model does not look a company up in a register. It composes a description from everything it read during training and whatever it retrieves at the moment of the question. Trade press, directories, forums, competitor comparison pages, and somewhere in that mix the company's own website too.
So the description a buyer sees is assembled, not published. No company controls it, but every company supplies a share of the material it is built from.
The traffic impact is still small, roughly one percent of sessions for most companies. The influence is not small, because the reader is often a buyer forming a first impression of what a company does and who it serves, before any page gets a click.
Checking takes ten seconds. Type the company name into ChatGPT and read the answer.
Frequently asked questions
Is ChatGPT free?
There is a free tier with usage limits and access to a smaller model. Paid tiers add higher limits, stronger models and additional tools.
Does ChatGPT search the internet?
Yes, when the question calls for it or the user asks. Answers drawn from search usually carry source links; answers from training data usually do not.
Does ChatGPT learn from my conversations?
On consumer tiers, conversations may be used to improve models unless the setting is turned off. Business tiers and the API generally exclude submitted content from training.
Can ChatGPT be wrong about my company?
Frequently, and usually because the sources it read are outdated or contradictory. The fix is correcting the sources rather than arguing with the model.
How does ChatGPT compare to Claude and Gemini?
All three are capable general assistants with different strengths and ecosystems. The practical difference for most teams is which tools and documents each one already connects to.
Related definitions
- What is a large language model?
- What is generative AI?
- What is AI search?
- Does ChatGPT work in Finnish?
- AI Search 101
Written by Lari Numminen, Generate More. Also available in Finnish. Updated 31 August 2026.