Knowledge baseSourcesChris Green

Diving into ChatGPT-5's web search function

Author Chris Green Date 2025-08-09 Model state GPT-5, August 2025, updated 2025-11-17; conversation JSON from the browser Open source →

Key findings

The first widely read description of the Sonic classifier: three probabilities, thresholds, example scores, plus the fields grouped_webpages, safe_urls, fallback_items and debug_sonic_thread_id. Coined the terms Sonic and SonicBerry in the field.

Checked against our data

Describes a state from summer 2025 that a year later has partly vanished. The classifier result is no longer readable, the reference fields still exist. Anyone searching today for sonic_classification_result finds nothing; for that, the article is the chronicle, not the description.

ClaimStatusEvidence
sonic_classification_result with simple/complex/no_search probabilities steers the search decisionoutdatedField not in the conversation object since our first measurement day 2026-08-20; only a sonic thread remains in the stream (routing.sonic_thread_present).
SonicBerry as a meta-search with paid/unpaid variants (current_sonicberry_paid_oai)unverifiableIdentifier not seen in our data.
Fields grouped_webpages, safe_urls, fallback_itemsconfirmedgrouped_webpages and safe_urls observed daily; fallback_items not.
31% search invocation across 8,700 terms (Chris Long)outdated69% in the standard mode in our data (26 German prompts, 2026-08-22); different prompt base.

Related

mcsweeney-2025-12-19 schneider-2026-01-02