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When ChatGPT was launched, it was widely touted as a Google Killer. The only limitation that held it back from being one was perhaps its inability to connect to the internet and retrieve information in real time. But even then, apart from generating texts, people were using it like a search engine to retrieve information.
Now, companies have gotten the idea of integrating these LLM-based chatbots into their search engines. This enables the search engine to leverage AI for maintaining conversational ability while accessing the internet to cite relevant sources and present crisp and summarised information about any query.
Here is a list of search engines or browsers that are integrating AI into their search engines to enable access to more accurate and summarised information:
NeevaAI
After teasing the company’s LLM technology in December, Neeva’s co-founder and CEO, Sridhar Ramaswamy, formally launched NeevaAI in the U.S. market in January. It was extensively marketed as an authentic and real-time AI search. Unlike several recently launched AI search engines, NeevaAI uses its independent search stack that makes it stand out from the competition.
NeevaAI aimed to solve the biggest problem that exists in ChatGPT—lack of internet access which results in a concurrent lack of citation of credible sources and no real-time information or data retrieval. Now, NeevaAI search provides a summary of what users search along with listing references and relevant links related to the keywords.
Bing AI
Google has indubitably been the dominant search engine for more than two decades. But now, Microsoft—leveraging the capabilities of AI—is in league to bring the competition to Google. In February, the company unveiled an update to Bing, which now incorporates LLM technology. Millions of users have signed up to be a part of it. The company has also released limited previews of it on desktop and sample queries on Bing.com.
Microsoft already has an advantage over Google when it comes to language models because of its partnership with OpenAI. They are integrating GPT-3.5 into their search for delivering summaries of the requested searches. This was definitely missing with ChatGPT, and now Microsoft is making it possible.
YouChat
You.com, the search engine, now includes an AI-powered chatbot. Among the first to integrate AI with the internet, YouChat is very similar to NeevaAI in that it also provides answers in a summarised paragraph, along with citing sources from where it retrieved the information. Users can search for queries just like any other search engine and it returns links along with a short description of what was queried.
It is more than just a search engine as well. YouChat excels in maintaining conversations and can also answer logical reasoning questions. Basically, if you are bored with the 2021 cut-off of ChatGPT, YouChat is definitely a good alternative to get answers with real-time data.
Waldo
Named after the game “Where’s Waldo”, Waldo has been on the ‘internet’ for over six months now. The search engine pulls indexes from Google and Bing, and presents results in a packaged and clean interface that is fine-tuned for the user. It was launched as an extension on chrome, but is now also available as a website and on mobile devices.
Waldo is very interesting. It has shortcuts that can highlight several parts of the search result and with a click of a few buttons, users can also download information in different file formats. More than a simple search engine, Waldo can easily be referred to as a research tool that searches the internet and packages information in a manner that aligns with users’ wants.
Andi
Backed by Y-Combinator, 24-year old Angela Hoover founded an AI-powered search startup called ‘Andi’ with Jed White. Blending the ability and feel/interface of a chatbot with conversational answers, Andi perfectly cites the origin of the information provided in results, thereby making it as reliable as a search engine.
In a separate panel, Andi also provides links like a search engine so that it does not look like a chatbot. Users can also avoid the chat functionality completely and retrieve full search results by clicking a button, as one would do on a Google search. The search engine keeps getting new updates and now can also summarise information into paragraphs, much like ChatGPT.
Google Search
To compete with ChatGPT, Google unveiled their own conversational agent called ‘Bard’ that was built on their own LLM—LaMDA. Leveraging this technology, the company has also announced that they will be integrating this technology into their search engine. So, when users are searching for something on Google Search, they will also be able to retrieve summaries of the request for better context.
Opera
Recently, joining the AI-powered race, Opera announced that they are integrating a “ChatGPT-like feature” in their web browser that will summarise information into paragraphs. The co-CEO, Song Lin, said that since generative AI tools are gaining widespread popularity and, now, along with search engines, it is time for browsers to harness their capabilities too.
Opera will soon have a widget on its toolbar that will summarise articles. The Norway-based company made this reveal after Microsoft announced that they are integrating similar tools on their Edge browser.
