Privacy-focused search engine Brave announced Wednesday that it is revamping its response engine to return synthesized responses powered by AI. The new feature is available to users around the world.
The new “Answer with AI” feature returns perfectly formatted answers to questions like “People who walked on the moon,” “List of all actors who have played Batman,” or “How to descale the Nespresso leprechaun.” . It can also summarize reviews and highlights of a restaurant for example.
Image credits: Brave
The company launched an AI-based summary feature in March 2023. The startup said its new AI-based search is a major improvement to it.
Brave said that information queries, such as the one listed on the new answer engine, will automatically rely on AI to present the information in a summary format. For other queries, users can manually trigger an AI search.
Image credits: Brave
The company, which switched to using its own index for search queries last year, said its ‘Answer with AI’ feature uses a combination of large language models (LLM) and trusted data . Brave said it uses a combination of Mixtral 8x7B and Mistral 7B as its main models as well as custom transformer models for semantic matching and response.
“The user only has to enter a query as they are used to doing with a traditional search engine. The query will then be internally converted into an LLM prompt using the search results data as context for the prompt, with a typical RAG (retrieval augmented generation), said the company’s head of research, Josep Pujol, to TechCrunch via email.
Image credits: Brave
Several reports have highlighted that AI-powered search could have serious consequences for the future of the web. Brave, which processes more than 10 billion queries a year, said that while users are demanding AI-enhanced responses and new ways of consuming content, the company is aware that this approach could hurt publishers serving content. content on the web.
“This challenge is not unique to Brave Search but is present in most AI-based response engines and chatbots, premium or open. Brave, as a browser and search engine, is aware of these challenges. Therefore, we will monitor and quantify the impact of AI-generated content on site visits and ultimately address any disruptions that lower traffic may cause,” the company said.
Other search engines, such as Google and Bing, have also adopted AI-based responses across different experiments. Meanwhile, startups like Perplexity and You.com are also vying to become users’ preferred response engine.
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