OpenAI has relaunched the browse with Bing feature in ChatGPT which lets users use ChatGPT leveraging the index of Bing Search. This was after Open AI turned off the feature after it was caught accessing content behind paywalls.

OpenAI has said on X, “ChatGPT can now browse the internet to provide you with current and authoritative information, complete with direct links to sources. It is no longer limited to data before September 2021. Since the original launch of browsing in May, we received useful feedback. Updates include following robots.txt and identifying user agents so sites can control how ChatGPT interacts with them. Browsing is particularly useful for tasks that require up-to-**** information, such as helping you with technical research, trying to choose a bike, or planning a vacation. Browsing is available to Plus and Enterprise users today, and we’ll expand to all users soon. To enable, choose Browse with Bing in the selector under GPT-4.”

The AI company posted, saying, “As of July 3, 2023, we’ve disabled the Browse with Bing beta feature out of an abundance of caution while we fix this in order to do right by content owners. We are working to bring the beta back as quickly as possible, and appreciate your understanding!”

The issue was that some content that was behind a paywall was being consumed and presented to users. Open AI said they disabled it to do “right by content owners” until they fix it, which they did 12 weeks later.

Here are those tweets:

Since the original launch of browsing in May, we received useful feedback. Updates include following robots.txt and identifying user agents so sites can control how ChatGPT interacts with them.

— OpenAI (@OpenAI) September 27, 2023

Browsing is available to Plus and Enterprise users today, and we’ll expand to all users soon. To enable, choose Browse with Bing in the selector under GPT-4.

— OpenAI (@OpenAI) September 27, 2023

That took longer than I expected…

Forum discussion at X.