ChatGPT Rebuilt Its Search Tool, I Read The New Language It Speaks

On August 16, when ChatGPT ran an online seek for me, the instrument name was JSON.

{"system1_search_query":[{"q":"site:intercom.com Fin AI Agent pricing 2026"}]}

On August 20, I requested the identical query on the identical account. The instrument name now appears like this.

quick|Intercom Fin AI agent pricing 2026 dwell chat help|30|intercom.com
quick|Gorgias AI Agent pricing 2026 buyer help|30|gorgias.com
quick|Zendesk AI brokers pricing 2026|30|zendesk.com
quick|greatest AI dwell chat help Intercom Gorgias Zendesk Ada Tidio Crisp reddit|365|reddit.com
size|lengthy

Someplace in these 4 days, OpenAI changed the JSON with a compact question language of its personal. And search_queries, the metadata discipline that mirrored the fan-out, the sector my final article advised you to learn and the sector FanoutFox parses, is gone from the payload fully.

That is Half 4 of the sequence that began with how ChatGPT picks sources and most lately discovered the shortlist it writes earlier than it searches. This time I ran the brand new format throughout eight questions, spanning business, bodily items, native, information and finance, and mapped what the language can say.

It says much more than the previous one.

5 concepts, each constructed on the final.

1. Each line is a search, and the fields are readable.
2. The third discipline is a freshness window, and it modifications with what you ask.
3. Search is a set of verticals, and your content material kind decides which one fires.
4. The area slot means ChatGPT visits websites it already is aware of.
5. Some solutions have gotten widgets, and there’s no quotation to win in them.

Every part right here is learn off my very own browser visitors with a single ChatGPT Plus account from a single location.

Concept 1: Each Line Is A Search

A instrument name is now a block of strains, one search per line, fields separated by pipes. The sample that repeats is a name kind, the question, a quantity, and generally a website.

quick|Zendesk AI brokers pricing 2026|30|zendesk.com

quick is the decision kind. The question reads just like the previous fan-out queries, model names the mannequin wrote in itself, a yr, an intent phrase like pricing. The quantity and the area are new, and so they’re the attention-grabbing half, as a result of they’re parameters the previous format had nowhere to place.

Every block closes with a directive line, size|lengthy, size|medium or size|quick. This one is the survivor of the previous format. The JSON on the prime of this text had "response_length":"lengthy" in the identical place, so it’s been renamed fairly than added. It reads as an instruction for a way a lot textual content to convey again per consequence, and the values observe the job. lengthy fired on the deep product comparability, medium on most lookups, and quick on a closing name that was verifying two venue names. If that studying is true, most searches pull a bounded excerpt of your web page fairly than the web page, another reason the sentence that solutions the query wants to sit down the place an excerpt begins.

The fields after the question are elective. Some strains are solely a question, some add the quantity, and the area seems when a website is being focused.

Sensible AI search engine marketing/GEO Tip

Ask the questions your consumers ask and examine the manufacturers written by ChatGPT. The model names in these queries are the aggressive set ChatGPT already holds to your class, and the domains within the slots are the websites it intends to go to.

Be sure that your website will survive the probing (I’ve written about this earlier than and made a couple of instruments, so examine them out).

Concept 2: The third Area Is A Freshness Window

Right here’s the identical discipline throughout 5 strains from the questions I requested on August 20.

A inventory worth will get two. Soccer outcomes get seven. Business product analysis will get 30. Earnings steerage will get 90.

So, what on earth is that this quantity?

I feel this quantity is a recency window in days, matched to how briskly the reply goes stale.

I haven’t seen any spec for this, so that is my assumption.

Sensible AI search engine marketing/GEO Tip

On the business questions I ran, each model probe had a 30-day window.

If the times assumption is true, a pricing or comparability web page that hasn’t modified in a month is competing from outdoors the default window on precisely the queries the place manufacturers get in contrast.

Replace the pages that reply shopping for questions inside that cycle, with actual modifications and visual dates.

Identical tactic goes to your key pages and content material. Test your prompts/key phrases.

Concept 3: Search Is A Set Of Verticals

The decision sorts I’ve captured thus far, with the true strains.

quick is the online search. It’s the successor to the entire previous fan-out.

product is a list lookup. It appeared on robotic vacuums and mattresses, and on not one of the software program questions I ran.

product|Roborock Saros 10R robotic vacuum;Dreame X50 Extremely robotic vacuum;Eufy E28 robotic vacuum

Product names, semicolon-separated, with nothing else on the road. It strains up with the product playing cards and service provider affords I discovered within the commerce layer again in June.

For bodily items, ChatGPT appears merchandise up in a list in addition to looking out pages about them, and presence in that catalogue is its personal recreation, separate from something your weblog does.

Sensible AI search engine marketing/GEO Tip

In case you promote bodily merchandise, examine whether or not yours come again with playing cards, affords and service provider names when ChatGPT recommends them. Playing cards imply {the catalogue} is aware of you. A textual content point out with no card means the content material recreation is the one one you’re in, and no quantity of web page work modifications what the product name returns.

enterprise is a locations lookup, and it takes a location. On a espresso query, it fired 3 times. Listed here are the primary two.

enterprise|Dubai, UAE|specialty espresso Dubai Marina;greatest espresso Dubai Marina
enterprise|Dubai, UAE||Blends Specialty Espresso;Roast Speciality Espresso, Marina;OLAB Espresso Store JBR

The primary name sends search phrases. The second sends precise enterprise names it obtained again from the primary, after which verifies them one after the other with quoted quick searches.

That’s the native model of the shortlist mechanics from the shortlist article, operating on venues as an alternative of manufacturers.

In case you run a neighborhood enterprise, the unit of optimisation is your entity within the locations knowledge.

The lookup returns the identify, the critiques, and the small print, and the online searches solely confirm them.

Ask ChatGPT to your personal class in your personal space and watch the second enterprise name.

In case your venue’s identify seems in it, the lookup is aware of you and the follow-up searches are checking your particulars, so ensure that what’s in your website matches what the listings say. In case your identify by no means enters that decision, your downside is the locations knowledge, and your web site can’t repair it.

picture is a picture search. picture|Dubai Marina specialty espresso store|30. It fired alongside the locations lookup.

genui_run calls a widget, with JSON arguments.

genui_run|epl_schedule|{"fn":"schedule","league":"EPL","date_from":"2026-08-21","date_to":"2026-08-24","locale_override":"en-GB"}
genui_run|stock_chart|{"ticker":"NVDA","asset_type":"fairness","market":"USA","locale_override":"en-US"}

A soccer schedule and a inventory chart, requested as features with typed arguments, not as searches in any respect. Extra on what which means in Concept 5.

Yet another element from the information seize. The area discipline can maintain an inventory. theguardian.com;skysports.com appeared on one line, so a search may be scoped to a number of publishers directly.

Concept 4: The Area Slot

Till this week, when ChatGPT wished to go looking one particular web site, it wrote the basic website:intercom.com in entrance of the question, the identical operator search we SEOs typically use…

The brand new format has a slot for it as an alternative. The final discipline on a line is an internet site, and that search solely appears there. Checking one firm’s website is constructed into the instrument now, sitting subsequent to the question on each line, fairly than spelled out within the search phrases. Each kinds nonetheless present up; some strains preserve website: within the phrases whereas others use the slot.

What this implies in observe hasn’t moved from the shortlist article. The mannequin nonetheless names manufacturers earlier than it fetches something, then goes to their web sites to examine what they are saying.

What’s new is how strange that step is. Visiting the web site of an organization it simply named is an ordinary choice on each search line, and the mannequin fills the slot itself, from no matter area it already hyperlinks to the model.

If the area in its reminiscence is flawed or stale, the probe searches the flawed place. I’ve watched that occur as soon as: a probe geared toward a website the model doesn’t run, and the broad search rescued them.

On the question greatest llm visibility instrument and what does each price, the mannequin wrote this probe:

website:profound.ai pricing AI visibility platform Profound pricing 2026

Profound doesn’t run on profound.ai; they run tryprofound.com. The probe returned zero pages from the pool. The model survived anyway. The broad discovery search discovered the suitable area; tryprofound.com obtained cited at its pricing web page, and Profound was named six occasions within the reply physique. So the flawed slot price them one of many mannequin’s 4 searches.

Sensible AI search engine marketing/GEO Tip

Learn the slot by yourself captures and examine the area is one you truly run. Rebrands, migrations, and nation domains are the circumstances that produce a flawed slot, as a result of the mannequin fills it from reminiscence, and reminiscence lags. A wasted probe price that model nothing on the day I watched it, and I wouldn’t construct a technique on the rescue repeating.

Concept 5: Some Solutions Are Turning into Widgets

The genui_run strains don’t return pages. They return interface.

Within the finance reply, the inventory chart confirmed up as a reference named stock_chart pointing at a widget hosted on cdn.platform.openai.com, model 2.0, hydrated from a state payload. Within the espresso reply, the mannequin emitted a genui directive within the reply textual content itself, a map widget with pins wired to the companies the locations lookup returned.

So, for sports activities, shares, locations, and presumably extra I haven’t caught but, a part of the reply is a part OpenAI renders itself. A inventory chart has no hyperlink inside it to win, and the soccer schedule cites no fixtures web page. Entire lessons of question are transferring to surfaces the place the quotation recreation, the one each GEO instrument measures, doesn’t exist.

Sensible AI search engine marketing/GEO Tip

Run the queries you rank for and be aware which come again with a widget the place the reply was once. A genui_run line within the seize is the inform. I can’t offer you a tactic for successful inside a widget, as a result of on what I’ve seen, there’s nothing in a single to win. What you are able to do is know which of your queries have crossed over, and cease counting quotation alternatives on reply sorts that now not supply any. In case your visitors depends upon being the web page that solutions “what time is the match,” the widget is your competitor now.

It’s the identical name as not optimizing for a key phrase whose SERP is an AI Overview and a wall of different options.

The Reddit Scenario Is Very Very Attention-grabbing

I wish to stroll you thru this one step-by-step, retaining what I can see separate from what I feel it means.

Begin with the road itself, from the dwell chat seize.

quick|greatest AI dwell chat help Intercom Gorgias Zendesk Ada Tidio Crisp reddit|365|reddit.com

Learn the question. Reddit is known as within the phrases, the area slot is pointed at reddit.com, and the window is 365, the place each model line in the identical name obtained 30. And the six model names are in there with it.

So, what’s happening right here?

I genuinely had a Joey second. (Associates followers will get it.)

So this search didn’t ask Reddit who the great dwell chat instruments are. It requested Reddit what folks say concerning the six instruments the mannequin had already picked.

The candidate set got here from reminiscence, and Reddit was fetched for opinion about it.

What got here again is the subsequent tangible reality.

Eighty-four of the 221 entries in that dialog’s retrieval pool had been Reddit threads, greater than from every other supply. The dialog had no open-and-read step, so what entered the mannequin’s context was 84 thread snippets, the title and excerpt the search returns, fairly than 84 threads learn in full.

Then the reply went out with each quotation certain to vendor pages. Zero of the 84 obtained credited, within the one dialog the place I’ve checked citations towards the pool line by line.

The espresso seize then did it once more, more durable.

quick|website:reddit.com Dubai Marina specialty espresso Dubai|3650|reddit.com

Each mechanisms directly, website: within the phrases and the area within the slot, with a 3650-day window. Ten years of threads, on a query the place information websites obtained seven days.

Why Reddit would get a decade on a neighborhood question, I truthfully don’t know, however I’ve a couple of ideas on this under. One clue about why a large window suits the query: I requested my AI agent to go looking Reddit for Dubai Marina espresso threads, and it discovered some as previous as 12 years. That’s the archive a 3,650-day window reaches.

The wire itself can’t verify ages both means. Virtually not one of the fetched Reddit entries in my seize carried a date, so I can’t let you know how previous the threads ChatGPT truly pulled had been.

Promptwatch’s chart from August 18 has Reddit’s share of ChatGPT citations collapsing from about 3.83% to beneath 1% in mid August. Their guess was a supply choice change. A quotation panel solely sees the completed reply. The wire provides the steps earlier than it: the deliberate request, the majority supply, and the zero credit.

Based mostly on what I’m seeing, that is what I feel is going on. I can’t verify it but, so deal with this as my interpretation of the proof, not a definitive conclusion.

• Content material sitting within the mannequin’s context can form what it writes. (There may be typically a bias.)
• This mannequin fetched opinion about its shortlist instantly earlier than writing opinions about its shortlist, then attributed these opinions to no one.
• I feel Reddit has turn out to be an invisible enter, feeding the verdicts whereas the credit go to vendor pages.
• That might match what I discovered in Half 1, the place information got here from official pages, and verdicts got here from third events, with Reddit chief amongst them. If that division of labour survived and the crediting stopped, the affect remains to be there, and the receipts are gone.
• The opposite doable studying is that the snippets are fetched after which ignored, and the year-wide window is a leftover behavior. Nothing within the visitors separates the 2. The fetching and the zero credit are information I can present you. The affect is my interpretation, and the wire can not show affect with out quotation.

Now let’s unpack this slightly additional and take a look at the broader context round why OpenAI might need made this variation.

Anti Manipulation And Spam Deterrence

This may very well be a solution to cut back the impression of individuals gaming Reddit for AI search engine marketing/GEO. If ChatGPT is intentionally trying throughout 1 to 10 years of Reddit historical past, current manipulation turns into a a lot smaller sign.

There are successfully two filters. The candidate pool seems to be chosen first, then Reddit is used to assemble opinions or validate these candidates. That makes merely flooding Reddit with model mentions far much less helpful.

There can also be a deterrence impact. Quotation research present Reddit visibility falling sharply, which makes entrepreneurs assume Reddit has misplaced its worth. Much less perceived worth means much less spam.

Compliance Or Licensing

For context, OpenAI and Reddit signed an information licensing deal in 2024, so the information entry itself is paid for and public. What that deal says about attribution, I can’t see from the wire. One other chance, and it’s hypothesis, is that OpenAI nonetheless desires the worth of Reddit knowledge with out leaning on Reddit as an apparent, instantly cited supply.

As an alternative of surfacing Reddit pages prominently in solutions, Reddit may very well be used additional upstream as an enter for candidate analysis, opinion gathering, or different inner retrieval processes.

Sensible AI search engine marketing/GEO Tip

If Reddit has been a part of your AI visibility work, rely the chips your self. Run your queries, and examine whether or not the threads you invested in nonetheless get credited on them.

Does this variation make your Reddit campaigns ineffective? Completely not.

In case you’ve been doing this for some time, genuinely partaking with Reddit communities and constructing a model, particularly if you happen to survived Reddit’s current spam purge, keep on. Two channels survive this variation both means. Years of threads feed the coaching knowledge that builds the reminiscence shortlist within the first place, and the people studying these threads by no means stopped being consumers. What’s collapsed is the measurable quotation payoff, the chips.

In case your technique was merely spamming Reddit to govern AI visibility, although, that is unhealthy information for you.

Keep in mind one factor. A thread that will get fetched however by no means cited isn’t a measurable win. Whether or not it nonetheless sways the reply is the open query above.

What Breaks, And What I’d Do

The previous recipe is useless. My final article stated to open DevTools and search the response for queries. That discipline now not exists. The queries are nonetheless there; they’ve moved into the net.run tool-call messages because the pipe-delimited strains above. FanoutFox reads the previous discipline too, and I’ll be patching it.

The brand new two-minute examine. Open ChatGPT in Chrome with DevTools on the Community tab. Ask the business query your consumers ask. Filter for dialog, click on the largest response, the dialog payload, not the tiny stream_status and textdocs rows that share the identify. Open its Response tab, press Cmd+F inside that pane, and seek for quick|. The panel-wide search drawer will drown you in JS bundle hits, so search contained in the one response as an alternative. Learn the strains. You’re on the lookout for three issues. Whether or not your model is within the queries, whether or not your area is within the slot, and what window your class runs on.

That examine is guide, and it will get previous on the third reply. FanoutFox, the free Chrome extension I constructed for this sequence, reads the identical session knowledge and does the fetched-versus-cited counting for you, per area, per reply. The converts column is the Reddit examine from this text as a sorted desk. Its fan-out card reads the previous search_queries discipline, in order that card is empty on new conversations till the patch for the pipe format ships, and the remainder of the panel, sources, citations, and the area radar, is unaffected by the change.

That is the third format change I’ve documented since June, and I may put a four-day window on this one solely as a result of I preserve dated snapshots of what the visitors exposes and diff them after each seize session. In case you do this type of work, preserve dated copies of the whole lot. What was true on a Sunday was passed by Thursday.

Extra Assets:

This put up was initially printed on Suganthan.

Featured Picture: sdecoret/Shutterstock