At some point along the line, which will be as unfathomable to you as the magical act it portrays, you’ll find yourself – for better or worse – among the earworm herd, with me, electron and puppet rabbits. We’ve all been there, on Google search rabbit trails where ‘How to make a latte?’ turns into ‘Latte vs. americano?’ and ‘How bad is caffeine for you?’ and ‘Coffee alternatives’.
Unfortunately, more often than not, I have found myself frustrated by how many times I have had to rephrase the same query to get the search engine (and therefore the browser) to understand what I was asking.
Nor how irritating it is to scroll absurdist sponsored ads past my results.
Enter AI-generated search engines.
What are AI search engines?
AI search engines are search engines that use some mixture of spiders, robots, bots, web crawlers, innate artificial intelligence (AI), and user data to enhance the search experience and create more relevant results. They are now among the most popular search engines because of their user-friendliness.
You’ll have less need to prompt an AI search engine to rephrase your query in a way that reflects your own intent. Your answer will be distilled into human-sounding AI-generated copy and cited sources: you won’t have to scroll through two or three URLs to check the legitimacy of what you’ve found.
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How I Test AI Search Engines
All of these tools had exactly the same stated purpose – to answer your question by searching the web for the best sources and links that could then be combined in the AI engine with some kind of internal or chatting knowledge to come up with the best answer – and it was easy for me to test them all the same way.
I simply provided the same two questions to every AI search engine, with the search engine’s ability to answer the questions being the metric for success, one being more of a ‘yes or no’ type, whereas the other question is more of an open-ended query. Seven of the best are below.
7 Best AI Search Engines
1. Perplexity
I started with Perplexity. You’ll have heard of it, they’ve been making a lot of noise recently. Anyway, there’s a lot to tell about this new search engine, but the most important thing is you’re not alone if you’re breaking up with Google and getting into Perplexity.
It’s halfway between ChatGPT and Google. Which is to say that it can answer your question in a human-sounding way – but it doesn’t actually know anything; its facts come from a quick scan of every available article.
I begin by asking my simple question: What’s the biggest city in the US? The first thing I notice is that Perplexity has the same basic UI as ChatGPT, since it uses OpenAI’s language models.
Outside of the sources linked at the top and referred to throughout the answer, Perplexity also shares relevant images on the right-hand side, with an option to search videos or generate images.
After this search result, I tested out a more thought-provoking question. I wanted to gauge how AI search engines perform when asked a question that doesn’t have a specific, singular answer. I asked, “How do I become a better blog writer?”
What I Like
Perplexity’s interface is intuitive enough for us long-time ChatGPT users to feel at home, and it will make the inbetween time more bearable.
Unlike chatbot discourse programs such as ChatGPT, however, Perplexity promises certainty – or at least, answers that will always be correct, citing sources from academic research to Reddit threads.
Confusion links at the top to some references and adds a citation to sources throughout its response. I’m a sucker for this kind of corroboration, having been trained as a student of the English and History teachers in my youth to lard my papers with such citations.
Some of the visual sources can help students do a Google Images and Videos search, not just a Web search.
And in the footer of your answer is ‘Keep exploring’, where Perplexity suggests other questions for you to search and receive an AI-generated answer. But for me, who’s likely to have upwards of 40 tabs open when researching a single topic, this would keep all my research in one place.
What Needs Improvement
Really, nothing. I am already trying to deploy this instead of my even more insistent Googling.
Pricing
Standard plan: Free
Professional plan: $20/month
2. Google Gemini
Following Omega/ChatGPT, Gemini (Bard rebranded by Google) is like another fractal offering from Google – especially for users who are already consuming Google’s world of so-called ‘innovations’ (a cute word that hides a menacing reality).
You might have noticed that Google has added an ‘AI Overview’ at the top of some of its search results. However, Gemini is still a platform for those responses that are meant to be AI-written.
In my first question test, I noted how quickly Gemini pulled up an answer, and how short it was.
In comparison, I noticed a huge difference in the results for my second question. It’s clear Gemini answers questions very differently based on how direct or abstract they are.
What I Like
I like the design of Gemini, and I liked that the home page opened with message: ‘Hello, Swetha’ which ‘feels’ quite human.
Gemini answered ‘NYC is biggest city in USA’, which is exactly what I hoped he would say when I asked him ‘What is the biggest city in America?’ I like that he didn’t offer more.
It has a ‘Second opinion’ system, which calls on Google to answer your question a second time.
What Needs Improvement
Most of the time, Gemini gives text-only answers – vastly different from the image, video and news results that Google gives – so I was surprised by this.
A note at the bottom of the search pane reads: ‘Gemini may say things that aren’t true, even about you, so check back what it says twice’. Nice of them to be honest. But Perplexity promises ‘100 per cent accuracy’, and that’s the one I go with.
There’s a ‘Search related topics’ feature at the bottom of my search-results list, which could be handy if I wanted to keep foraging for more answers… But that little link takes me out of Gemini and into Google again, another sign that the system hasn’t been completely flushed out, and still relies on Google.
Pricing
Free of charge plan: $0
Pay-as-you-go plan: Price varies based on a cost-per-token model.
3. Brave Search
Brave Search is a secure and privacy-supportive search engine for Web browsing. It ensures security and privacy by not tracking online searches or past websites visited. Brave Search is not collecting your personal data, therefore it cannot sell it or share it with anyone else.
So, it’s already helpful for those who work on shared computers or networks But, shortly after the AI-assisted search and search assistants began appearing on this list, Brave Search released a privacy-oriented AI answer engine.
I dove into my first test question to see how Brave held up against Perplexity and Gemini.
Brave Search resembles Google and other classic search engines since that’s what it inherently is. In this way, it may be more attractive for search engine traditionalists wary about trying out a brand-spanking new AI tool.
After this, I tested out my second question on the search engine and was met with a similar look and style of response.
What I Like
Brave Search looks extremely unoriginal, which is a good thing. I am so used to the Google interface for random queries, that it is helpful that Brave Search is modelled along the same lines.
Privacy and security shouldn’t be the afterthought: when you forget that you’re in Incognito mode because you want to look up something and not have it logged that way; when you desperately want to keep from being served ads about Bali just because you wanted to check whether it was warm there one time and you searched ‘flights to Bali’ or even just ‘Bali’.
When you click on a result with Brave Search, you’ll see what it calls ‘Context’, and you’ll see all of its various sources. I really like that these are all down at the bottom of your search results, where they’re out of your immediate field of vision while you read.
If you like Brave Search, you can make Brave your default browser.
What Needs Improvement
I did the normal search and the search with the same ‘Answer with AI’ feature active and both served up exactly the same search results. That’s not exactly an incentive to use the AI feature when your results will be unchanged whether you select that feature or not.
Pricing
Free plan: $0
Base plan: $5 CPM
Pro plan: $9 CPM
Free plan: $0
Base plan: $3 CPM
Pro plan: $5 CPM
Data w/storage rights plans:
Base plan: $26 CPM
Pro plan: $45 CPM
Autosuggest and Spellcheck plans:
Free plan: $0
Pro plan: $0.50 CPM
4. Microsoft Copilot
Microsoft Copilot, an AI assistant developed by the tech giant specifically to work in tandem with the company’s Microsoft 365 apps, including Word, PowerPoint and Excel.
It’s very similar to ChatSpot – HubSpot’s chat bot and AI Assistant – in the sense it’s most useful when paired with our own products.
Copilot quickly became the most integral feature in Microsoft 365 apps, providing help for the right tasks in Word, PowerPoint and Outlook inboxes.
Copilot also has a web version that functions similarly to Perplexity. You enter a question, and it curates a response by scouring the web for references.
In my second search, Copilot included a lengthier response with a relevant video that auto-played at the bottom of the page.
What I Like
Copilot is, first and foremost, a sidekick for Microsoft 365. I use Outlook daily. It’s a great email client. An AI, search-engine-style recommendation engine that extends beyond search and into my choice of apps? What’s not to like?
The Copilot web interface is inviting, with a slick white background, colourful logo, and AI-generated artwork.
The sources are linked but they don’t distract me too much. Nice that they are shortened as the URLS, and that I can hover at the URLS and look at the full title.
It isn’t a treasure trove of pictures and movies, but a single relevant video to accompany the textual search results.
What Needs Improvement
While the search results for my second question were thorough and informative – compared with search results for the same question on other search engines – for example, only one article was returned for my first search query.
Being a search engine isn’t even Copilot’s strongest suit, much less its best feature, so you can’t necessarily count on it in the same way that you can count on the other AI tools highlighted here.
Pricing
Web-only plan: Free
Copilot for Microsoft 365 plan: $30/user/month
5. Komo
Komo is another AI search engine, in which this clean UI spits out fountains of data, in much the same way that Perplexity seems easy to use, and references the source facts.
Komo has options to Ask, Search, Research, or Explore anything. Toggling to each of these four modes changes the format of your responses. I tested this out with my first question, searching it in all four modes.
For my second question, I tested it in “Ask” mode only.
What I Like
And because Komo has four search modes, you can search on everything from a multipart command to a simple shop query for ego validation. The ear candy in each version’s language varies. For my purposes, the terse speech in the ‘Ask’ mode felt right, but, say for academics, perhaps the ‘Research’ mode would suit them better.
The fact that search results point to references to so many sources goes to indicate that knowing things and checking your facts are of some relevance to what it is the search engine is doing.
The ‘Opinions’ link seamlessly connects you to a series of trustworthy links, no matter how basic or complex the leading question might be.
The “Learn More” feature lists follow-up questions to continue your search.
What Needs Improvement
The possibilities for tinkering are limited in the free version – the one-a-day limit is pretty strict – making for a highly unusual research mode that would be perfect if it were more accessible to freebies.
Pricing
Free plan: $0
Basic plan: $8/month
Premium plan: $15/month
Business plan: Contact the Komo team for pricing.
6. You.com
You.com, so appropriately named because it can be customised for how you would like to use it, is a 16-AI-models search engine with four AI assistants.
Clicking “More” above opens you up to the sheer number of assistants and models you can try out with You.com. You can see a snapshot of some of the AI models below.
Like Komo, you can search various queries in each AI assistant based on the prompt type. For instance, Smart Assistant is for any questions, Research Assistant is for topics requiring deep analyses and explorations, and Genius Assistant is for multi-step problems.
I used Smart Assistant to ask my first question since it’s simpler and more direct.
I used Research Assistant for my second question since it’s a bit more complex and can be explored more deeply.
What I Like
What’s remarkable is how intuitive each of You.com’s four AI Assistants are. You deeply understand what informational context exactly each Assistant is operating from. It’s pretty clear what questions, topics and prompts to search in each of the four Assistants.
This is the option for hardcore AI nerds who want to understand most of the latest and greatest AI models in one place.
The feature I like best is Research Assistant. You.com traces the exact location it is searching, which means that I can better understand the process, which translates to patience while I wait to see my search results.
It was this search engine that provided the most detailed and helpful answers to my query ‘How do I write better blogs?
What Needs Improvement
It isn’t as obvious to new users: the plethora of modes, Assistants and models means a period of trying things out to see if they stick and how you like to search.
You can only make three reputable premium queries per day, including all searches that are not through the Smart Assistant.
Pricing
Free plan: $0
YouPro plan: $20/month (or $15/month when billed annually)
Organizations plan: Contact the You.com team for pricing.
7. Yep
Pioneers in the SEO tool Ahrefs spun off a related search engine, named plainly Yep, mimicking the standard search engine style, but with distinctive funky colours.
What sets Yep apart is that it shares 90% of its ad revenue with content creators in an effort to support high-quality content. Yep offers an unbiased, private search experience that encourages and financially supports the minds behind the content.
Outside of its positive mission, Yep looks and feels similar to Google when conducting searches. You can search any query and filter by All results, Images, or News.
You can also use the “Chat” feature on the top right-hand side if you’d prefer an AI-generated response.
I searched my second question to see how it fared on Yep.
What I Like
Yep is the most browser-like of them all – and most definitely ad-free. After years of combing through ads in the sponsored URL droplet at the top of every Google query, seeing them replaced by only those links that are most helpful does feel refreshing.
Search browser view and chat button switch allows you to switch between best of an AI search engine and a chatbot in one tool.
The UI is intuitive but easy to learn, which is nice for someone who is not always patient while learning a completely new version of a tool that I already use daily.
The cherry on the cake of Yep’s goal to promote ‘high-quality, authentic search results’ also makes you feel very good about using it as your default AI-powered search engine
If you like Yep, you can make it your default browser.
What Needs Improvement
Although I like its stripped-down aesthetic, I question whether there should not be slightly more to the experience. It is, after all, still in beta, so it’ll no doubt be a while before it catches up with those on my list of other apps.
It has no independent access to the kind of data that fuels the likes of Google or Bing (or even other search engines in this list), since I was served up fewer than 10 relevant URLs for both my queries. But because Yep relies on two web crawlers (YepBot and AhrefsBot), its base of knowledge might grow sizeable with time.
The AI bot does not cite sources, something I have come to expect from the other search engines on this list.
Pricing
No pricing info and this would probably only come in a free plan (for now, one hopes!).
Where There’s A Will, There’s A(I) Way
You preach what you sell. As a marketer, you promote those things you truly believe in: because you’re either a customer, or a true evangelist, or a fan – yourself. And I use the product. I mean – I work at Nickelodeon, I can’t say ‘everyone eats kids TV at home!’
Which is why you’re likely to believe that your search engine is efficient and effective and can therefore be best used in the development of your search engine marketing strategy.
On the other side, the value proposition of AI search engines, notably Perplexity and You.com, has become much more clear to me and I will certainly make an effort to include those into my personal and business routines.
There’s no need to waste a few seconds explaining your questions to the search engine and eliciting appropriate answers from the importunate box whenever you’re not sure how to phrase questions. I could have answered the two sample questions on each of the above seven search engines with much greater ease as if they’d just naturally come to me because I hadn’t had to read a few articles to check my facts.
For those who worry about what AI could mean for society, you can see how handy it could be in helping marketers and users filter out the noise and get to usable, useful, meaningful work and experiences.
