--- title: Why is OpenAI so stingy with ChatGPT web search? | daily.dev description: OpenAI makes it unnecessarily difficult to enable web search in ChatGPT despite the model frequently providing incorrect information without it. There's no... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/why-is-openai-so-stingy-with-chatgpt-web-search--0hvzgexer twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Why is OpenAI so stingy with ChatGPT web search? | daily.dev og:description: OpenAI makes it unnecessarily difficult to enable web search in ChatGPT despite the model frequently providing incorrect information without it. There's no... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/why-is-openai-so-stingy-with-chatgpt-web-search--0hvzgexer og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/0hvZGEXEr.png og:image:alt: Why is OpenAI so stingy with ChatGPT web search? og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Why is OpenAI so stingy with ChatGPT web search? **[Justin Searls](https://daily.dev/sources/searls)** · 1 min read · 1 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary OpenAI makes it unnecessarily difficult to enable web search in ChatGPT despite the model frequently providing incorrect information without it. There's no default setting, keyboard shortcut, or command to trigger search, and the interface actively discourages its use through poor UX design and A/B testing. This raises questions about the actual cost of web search implementation and why OpenAI prioritizes limiting search usage over accuracy, especially when they're willing to spend heavily on other aspects of user growth. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [I ditched Google Search for AI for a week, and ChatGPT wasn't even close to the winner](https://daily.dev/posts/i-ditched-google-search-for-ai-for-a-week-and-chatgpt-wasn-t-even-close-to-the-winner-ydlnyp1pp) · XDA Developers · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#llm](https://daily.dev/tags/llm), [#ux](https://daily.dev/tags/ux), [#openai](https://daily.dev/tags/openai), [#chatgpt](https://daily.dev/tags/chatgpt) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/why-is-openai-so-stingy-with-chatgpt-web-search--0hvzgexer) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Why is OpenAI so stingy with ChatGPT web search?","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/why-is-openai-so-stingy-with-chatgpt-web-search--0hvzgexer","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/why-is-openai-so-stingy-with-chatgpt-web-search--0hvzgexer"},"datePublished":"2026-02-01T16:26:12.858Z","dateModified":"2026-02-01T16:26:31.167Z","description":"OpenAI makes it unnecessarily difficult to enable web search in ChatGPT despite the model frequently providing incorrect information without it. 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