Here is the 2500+ word blog post on the best AI search engines:
The Race to Build a Better Search Engine: Comparing the Top AI-Powered Alternatives to Google
The internet feels a little smaller every day. As of 2022, there were an estimated 6.1 billion indexed webpages, and counting. Faced with this exponentially growing mountain of online data, even a search heavyweight like Google struggles to separate signal from noise.
Enter artificial intelligence (AI) – newly emerging tech with the potential to transform how we find, filter and comprehend information online.
A new generation of AI-powered search engines aims to provide more relevant results faster by understanding user intent. They learn your preferences to provide tailored answers instead of a list of blue links. Others leverage cutting-edge natural language processing to enable real conversations with search engines or turn any text source into interactive FAQs.
As engineers pour resources into the race to build a better search engine, Google’s lead doesn’t seem quite so insurmountable. Read on as we explore this burgeoning new category, spotlighting the AI search engines generating plenty of excitement.
The State of Search: Why We’re Ready for AI Search Engines
Before diving into the specifics of various AI search products, it helps set the stage by examining the current search landscape. While no one doubts Google’s dominance – owning 92% of the global search market – there are cracks emerging in its market share that next-gen search engines could exploit.
On the consumer end, privacy and filter bubble concerns have more people reconsidering their relationship with Google. As online tracking and data harvesting enable larger tech companies to build detailed user profiles, public trust is eroding.
Meanwhile, innovations in natural language processing – especially transmitter models like GPT-3 – have shown AI’s expanding ability to parse messy human languages. The pieces are falling into place for transformative new approaches to search that could outperform Google on speed, privacy and personalization.
Now, investors and entrepreneurs are actively exploring this opportunity. Global VC investment in search tech startups totaled $3.7 billion from 2020-2022, more than the previous 10 years combined according to Pitchbook.
As consumers, we stand to benefit tremendously from the flurry of innovation sparked by the collision of public pressures, technical advances and influx of capital into the search domain. But with so many new products launching, all making bold claims, sorting the substance from the hype can be challenging.
In the next sections, we cut through promotional chatter to offer an unbiased look at five of the most promising AI search engines aiming to supplement or supplant Google search.
Perplexity AI – Precision Search Engine Powered by Contextual Predictions
Perplexity AI markets itself as an “insanely accurate” search engine designed by former AI researchers and engineers from MIT, Google, Facebook and Intel. It was one of the earliest startups focused expressly on developing AI search technology, founded in 2020 by data scientists Sean Gourley and Tom Graham.
How it works
Rather than rely solely on keyword matches like some traditional search engines, Perplexity employs advanced statistical models that generate “contextual predictions” to match user queries with the most relevant content.
Specifically, it trains neural networks on massive datasets to build a contextual understanding of entities (people, places, organizations, etc.) and their probabilistic relationships. By encoding these connections, Perplexity can offer smarter suggestions even when users don’t provide perfect search terms.
Key features and capabilities
- Ad-free search focused strictly on most relevant results
- Serves as an alternative frontend to Google‘s index without the ads or tracking
- Contextual engine aims to understand meaning behind queries, not just keywords
- Users can adjust a relevance slider to control how results match search intent
- Currently available as browser extension, iOS app and API
What users are saying
In reviews, Perplexity earns praise for eliminating irrelevant results and ads. Users mention it performs especially well for navigating recent news and trending topics. The ability to refine searches by sliding between “Most Relevant” and “Most Popular” also garners positive feedback.
Verdict
Still in its early stages, Perplexity AI shows significant promise as an alternative search option focused wholly on giving users the most applicable results as efficiently as possible. For queries where you want a quick, ad-free answer, its precision search has the potential to save time and effort compared to standard search engines.
Neeva – A More Private Ad-Free Search Experience
Part of the appeal of AI search engines lies in their ability to circumvent the privacy pitfalls of big tech competitors like Google. That’s the driving idea behind Neeva – launched in 2021 with $77.5 million in initial funding – which bills itself as the world’s first advertising-free, private search engine.
Neeva was founded by ex-Googlers Sridhar Ramaswamy and Vivek Raghunathan, who previously led the ads and search teams respectively at Google. Now, they’ve built Neeva as a subscription-based antidote to their former employer, promising “search that puts you first.”
How it works
Neeva operates as a protective barrier between users and the wider web. You sign in with an account to access personalized features. Behind the scenes, Neeva leverages index data from Bing and other sources but doesn’t track or profile your search history. This prevents targeting by advertisers while still returning comprehensive results.
Their flagship offering is a Chrome extension that transforms Google search into Neeva’s private, ad-free interface. But the startup also plans its own fully independent search infrastructure combining AI and human curation to rank quality sites.
Key features and capabilities
- Chrome extension to block Google ads / tracking
- Sync preferences across mobile apps and desktop browser
- Groups organizing results like travel, shopping, recipes, etc
- Spaces to easily re-find previous searches
- Plans to expand offerings for enterprise search
What users are saying
In beta reviews from power searchers, Neeva earns high marks for its clean UI and added privacy.grouping results by topic also proved popular. Less online savvy testers found the extension format confusing at first. Some features like Spaces require further development.
Verdict
For those uneasy about Google’s data collection practices, Neeva offers a refreshing alternative: ad-free search without giving up convenience. As the company builds out its AI capabilities and search index in the coming year, it has disruptor potential. But the subscription fee may deter casual users satisfied with Google’s free service.
You.com – Ultra-Personalized AI Search Engine
Founded in 2018, You.com markets itself as the “world’s most personal search engine” designed from scratch to understand individuals better than services built to understand the whole web.
The company is led by Richard Socher, a prominent name in AI academia and industry. Back in 2012, he developed groundbreaking models for understanding sentence structure. More recently at SalesForce, Dr. Socher spearheaded Einstein, branded as the “world‘s smartest CRM.”
You.com raised $30 million this year from leading investors like Breyer Capital and Sound Ventures. So the startup is well-funded in its mission of “an unbiased search that knows you.”
How it works
The key ingredients powering You.com’s personal touch are natural language processing (NLP) models coupled with a technique called few-shot learning. NLP parses sentences to extract meaning. Few-shot learning is modeled after the way humans can grasp new concepts from very few examples.
Together, these AI capabilities allow the search engine to get to know your interests quickly using on a few searches. It then fine-tunes results to match your preferences as you provide more implicit feedback through clicks and queries.
Key features and capabilities
- Side-by-side video and text results
- Voice search
- Shoppable product images
- Discover view for browsing topics
What users are saying
Early reviews highlight You.com’s modern interface with inviting visual results. The personalized experience also earns praise. Users mention their interests like crypto or celebs appearing prominently. But a key complaint focuses on result quality with more obscure queries. Also requires signing up unlike some competitors.
Verdict
You.com succeeds in delivering a 21st century search portal centered around the end user. For navigating everyday interests like sports scores or the day’s news, the AI-enhanced personalization works wonderfully. Long-term growth depends on indexed content depth to address relevancy gaps.
ChatGPT Chrome Extension – Conversational AI Search
Thus far we’ve covered dedicated AI search startups aiming to provide alternatives to conventional engines. Now we look at attempts to merge two leading-edge technologies – chatbots and semantic search – to enable more natural discovery of online information.
Case in point is the ChatGPT Chrome extension from Anthropic, the AI safety startup behind the virally popular conversational bot. The add-on allows querying ChatGPT directly from Google search tabs to chat about results or refine queries.
How it works
The extension taps into the dialogue abilities of ChatGPT models. When activated, it adds an “Ask ChatGPT” chat widget connecting to Anthropic’s servers. Pasting any URL lets you have a back and forth with ChatGPT to summarize key details, discuss a topic, or find related pages.
For search refinement, ChatGPT can rephrase queries or explain why existing results miss the mark. This helps users better express their intent through conversation versus keyword guessing games.
Key features and capabilities
- 1-click access to ChatGPT from any Google search
- Conversational explanations about any search result
- Refine future queries based on detailed feedback
- Seamless integration using browser extension
What users are saying
Early chatbot limitations like repetition and inaccuracies dampen enthusiasm for the extension. But users appreciate the concept and convenience of asking direct questions about search results rather than deciphering text snippets alone. Many note it helps guide better subsequent searches.
Verdict
Despite its conversational shortcomings, the ChatGPT Chrome extension hints at the natural search experiences on the horizon. Moving forward, blending chatbot interfaces with search engine backends poses an intriguing method to make hunting for information online more instinctive.
Google Bard – First Foray into AI Search
Any review of emergent competitors aiming to disrupt Google must also discuss the search leader’s own evolving efforts to maintain dominance. While Google helped ignite the AI revolution since publishing breakthrough machine learning results in 2016, they’ve taken a cautious approach applying AI search directly to their flagship web engine.
But February 2023 brought the announcement of Bard, Google’s conversational chatbot service and first big public push into AI search capabilities.
How it works
Google Bard relies on LaMDA (Language Model for Dialogue Applications), Google’s internal large language model capable of impressively sophisticated conversations. LaMDA has been trained on internet text and other content to optimize dialogue ability.
Bard combines LaMDA’s language mastery and Google’s vast search index to directly answer questions or have discussions about search results.
Key features and capabilities
As a just-debuted product, details remain limited. But Google outlined goals for Bard to provide:
- Conversational, summarative search experiences
- Responsive voice assistant features
- Access to freshest Google search results
What users are saying
Public reaction remains preliminary. Some AI experts expressed worries about releasing bot technology without proper safeguards given risks around bias, misinformation, etc. Others felt underwhelmed by rather basic conversational demos. But overall interest runs high.
Verdict
With Google finally embracing AI search capabilities, they possess unmatched resources to excel. But the advantages of a late mover also apply. As pioneers like You.com and Neeva find product-market fit, Google can watch and learn rather than staking their search crown on a 1.0 chatbot. We may one day view Bard as the catalyst that sparked Google’s AI search breakthroughs. But in these early days, there’s everything still left to prove.
Key Factors to Evaluate When Choosing an AI Search Engine
In a rapidly evolving technology landscape with new contenders constantly emerging, identifying search solutions able to adapt and endure presents quite the challenge. Rather than reacting to the hype cycle around latest launches, measuring engines against core principles helps surface lasting value.
Here are key areas to analyze more deeply when comparing AI search options beyond surface features:
Semantic Relevance – Term matching will only gain traction as voice and conversational become predominant interfaces. Understand each engine’s approach to deciphering meaning, not just keywords.
Data Privacy – Search engines possessing the most data on users will dominate personalization. Review policies through the lens of surveillance capitalism risks.
Result Neutrality – Algorithms reflecting systemic biases pose serious harm. Prioritize transparency around curation bias,particularly as AI generates content.
Feedback Mechanisms – No dataset stays current for long with our ever-changing language and culture. Ensure the engine interacts dynamically with users to continuously tune relevance.
The Outlook for AI Search: More Questions Than Answers
Despite ballooning investment and enthusiasm, AI-driven search remains very much in its infancy. As explored above, new players boast technological advantages. However, product-market fit uncertainty and scaling complex ML systems introduce meaningful execution risks.
And while current offerings address many common consumer search pain points, applying AI to enterprise, academic, governmental and domain-specific search reveals more complex open challenges.
Additionally, hard questions around managing societal risks – like AI-generated misinformation – remain unresolved. History shows early runaway success can outpace ethical safeguards. So while AI search carries tremendous promise, realization depends greatly on governance keeping pace.
But in the long arc of technology progress, today‘s state-of-the-art solutions always appear underwhelming in hindsight. There’s every reason to believe search will follow other transformed sectors like transportation, diagnostics and manufacturing into the AI age, likely sooner than the incumbents expect.
For those uneasy about concentrating such insights into the world’s knowledge in one or two private corporations, a more vibrant market with new thinking stands as welcome news. Users tired of filter bubbles or profiteering finally have reason to hope for something better from the internet‘s next era of discovery.
