OpenAI boosts personalization in its new “Memory with Search” feature

The Sam Altman-led company is rolling out its latest feature, “Memory with Search”, to make ChatGPT more personalized and “intelligent” when responding to your queries that require a web search. 

The new feature was announced via OpenAI’s support pages and changelog. 

It allows its chatbot to draw information from past conversations, such as a user’s location and favorite food, to deliver more accurate and personalized web search results.  

So, if ChatGPT remembers a user is vegan and lives in Miami, asking for a vegan restaurant can prompt the chatbot to search for vegan restaurants in Miami.  

The move was made after the tech giant enhanced ChatGPT's memory to reference your entire chat history. It’s a strategic step to stay competitive against AI assistants such as Gemini (Google) and Claude (Anthropic).

Based on OpenAI’s documentation,  the “memory with search” activates when a user enters a search-relevant prompt. 

The system rewrites the query and blends stored memory details to generate context-aware and more valuable results.

Users can disable this feature in the settings. The company has yet to confirm how widely it is currently available.