Google’s Gemini and Microsoft’s Copilot (among others) have successfully made AI chatbots mainstream and serve as viable alternatives to standard web search engines. In turn, the standard search engines from those companies (along with alternative ones) have adopted some AI elements.
Bing, for example, now offers the Copilot Search feature that shows you the AI’s reasoning process. Meanwhile, Google’s AI Overviews provide a summary of findings at the top of a results page. The company is also working to expand AI Overviews into a dedicated search interface called AI Mode, which you can query directly like a chatbot.
AI can greatly improve the web search experience, and Copilot is a productivity booster in terms of research. Whereas you used to have to pore over multiple web pages in standard search results, you can now often find the kernel of knowledge you’re after with just one text prompt. Plus, if an initial answer isn’t quite what you’re looking for, AI search bots keep track of your previous requests to give follow-up questions context. That means you don’t have to keep rephrasing your query the way you do with standard search or legacy AI tools like Amazon’s Alexa and Apple’s Siri.
But Copilot in Bing and Google AI Overviews aren’t our focus here. Instead, we are looking at search engines that run entirely on generative AI.
Generative AI and chatbots typically rely on large language models (LLMs) that train on an information set with a specific cutoff date. The search engines we highlight here also use LLMs to understand the text you enter, but rather than basing their results on a fixed knowledge base, they scan the live web for up-to-date information and use AI to generate the best answer. The better ones even show you their sources so you can double-check them.
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Remember that, like all generative AI tools, the search engines listed below might make mistakes, just like humans. So be sure to check what you’re told! Read on to explore the most intriguing AI search engines we’ve come across.
Best for General Search
Andi bills itself as “search for the next generation” and, unlike many of the options here, it’s suitable for consumers, not just businesses. It has a very user-friendly interface and even greets you upon access.
The search engine shows its best-guess result in a main response area and additional web links in a side panel. A Summarize Results option takes longer and generates a write-up with a more detailed explanation. Depending on the query, you can sort the responses by Results, News, Images, and Video. You can also search within your results and display them as cards, a list, tiles, or even classic blue Google links.
Andi is less conversational than popular AI chatbots and doesn’t maintain the context of follow-up queries. Nor will it immediately write a cover letter, give you a complete recipe for asparagus au gratin, or plan a trip itinerary, though it can find quality sites that help you do those things.
A button at the bottom of the results uses generative AI to answer any questions directly. You can tell it to Retry a prompt, but it won’t accept any follow-up instructions. Andi also won’t generate images for you or give you a choice of LLMs (the site uses Claude). It doesn’t let you use your voice to search, either.
According to the site, “Andi is free and anonymous. In the future, there will be certain additional features that will require sign-in and paid plans.” To that end, the company launched a waitlist for Andi Plus and references a paid business tier in some places. Andi currently doesn’t show ads, but the site documentation states that it intends to share revenue with content-creator sites. The site is available online for anyone to try.
Best for Clear Interface and Choice of Models
Bagoodex has one of the clearest interfaces of any product here, so you shouldn’t have any trouble switching to it from a standard web search engine. It takes a few seconds to return an answer like other generative AI tools, though results are clear and relevant. But when we asked about the release date of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered, which came out during our testing period, it failed to provide up-to-date information. In other words, Bagoodex is better for general knowledge queries than those about current events. My test query about the best dividend-bearing stocks returned concrete ticker symbol results rather than the vague suggestions some of the other services here came up with.
Search results show relevant images on the right side of the page, while a floating Ask Follow-Up box at the bottom lets you continue the conversation. It provides suggested follow-ups, as well as sources for its answers. Bagoodex maintains your answers in a thread, an advantage over traditional web searches. The search result has Copy Link and Share buttons. You can switch to a chat mode that sends prompts to ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, or various other models. Finally, Bagoodex can generate images using DALL-E, Flux, or Recraft models, which deliver impressive results quickly.
Search is completely free and without ads at this point, and the company hasn’t announced monetization plans. It also doesn’t require a sign-in, as other services here do. In chat mode, though, you can run out of credits. Signing up for a Bagoodex account with your Google login gets you 30 credits per day. If you want more, you can sign up for Bagoodex Plus ($9 per month for 2,000 credits) or Bagoodex Pro ($29 per month for 8,000 credits).
Most Advanced AI Model
OpenAI’s ChatGPT, the service that popularized generative AI, works for regular web searches. Simply click on Search within the interface to access it. Alternatively, you can just ask a question normally, and ChatGPT will search the web if necessary. Just as with standard ChatGPT, you can ask follow-up questions, and the service maintains the context of your conversations. You get limited access to the GPT-4o and o3-mini models for free, along with unlimited use of the GPT-4o mini model. Limited access means you can ask only so many questions each day. The site can read answers aloud for you in a lifelike voice, and you get the option to thumbs-up or thumbs-down the result. Importantly, ChatGPT provides links to its sources of information. However, you need to log in to change models and access most of these features.
Originally only for ChatGPT Plus subscribers ($20 per month), the search feature is available to free users and allows speech input. ChatGPT has apps (which require account sign-in) for Android, iOS, macOS, and Windows. A Chrome extension is available if you decide to make ChatGPT your default browser search engine.
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Best for Targeted Search Categories
Komo has a simple interface with helpful tools, such as a Mind Map that shows a tree chart of your results and an Explore button that displays thumbnails for related searches. You can choose an AI model, including versions of Claude, DeepSeek, Gemini, and GPT, alongside Komo Search and Llama 3.3. For standard search purposes, the Komo Search model should serve you well; its documentation says it excels at answer generation, document ranking, and query understanding.
Another helpful tool is Komo’s Personas: Copy Writer, Equity Researcher, Explainer, Planner, Quote Collector, TL;DR, and more. These provide a way to tune responses to your needs, and we haven’t seen equivalent options in other AI chatbots. You can also select a Data Corpus, such as Academic, Blog, News, Socials, Video, and Web.
You can use Komo for free but must pay to access special features. The Basic level, which costs $12 per month (billed annually), offers features like AI Fact Check, limited access to model selection, and Personas. The $24-per-month Premium tier (also billed annually) unlocks different models and more advanced queries.
No dedicated apps are available, but you can install Komo as a PWA on mobile or desktop platforms.
Best for News Topics
Perplexity is comparable to Microsoft’s Copilot. At one point, it even called one of its features Copilot! Like that tool, Perplexity shows source links for its results and saves your previous queries. Those are cleverly named Threads (not to be confused with Meta’s Threads social network). These save to your Library, and you can add follow-up queries. All the AI chatbots we’ve used suggest follow-up questions, so this is hardly unique.
Perplexity’s result page can be busier than other sites here since it includes buy tiles and source links with images. Another difference is that Perplexity has a Discover page similar to Google News. Another option is Spaces, where you can add Thread entries, upload files, and use AI analysis to get summaries; you can share Spaces with others for collaboration.
Perplexity Free account users get unlimited Quick searches and three Pro searches per day. Professional accounts ($20 per month) unlock 300 Pro searches per day, AI model choices, and unlimited file uploads. They also include searching within Spaces. Perplexity offers Android, iOS, macOS, and Windows apps and a browser extension for Chromium-based browsers but not Firefox or Safari.
Best for Custom Business Search Agents
With a focus on business use, You.com calls itself an “AI workplace for productivity” and leverages existing LLMs. It offers a limited free option, but you need to sign in to an account to access chat history, create custom agents, and upload files. A free account limits you to a 16K context window (aka tokens), meaning the AI will consider only that much input in formulating its answers. I didn’t get very far in testing with a free account before I got a message prompt to upgrade. The $180-per-year Pro subscription gets you access to GPT-4o and Claude 3.5 Sonnet LLMs, file uploads of up to 25MB per query, a 64K context window, and research and custom agents. The $300-per-year Team plan prevents your input from being used to train the AI, offers zero-data retention, and increases the context window to 200K.
You.com starts you with four buttons above the search box: Research, Create, Compute (for solving complex challenges), and Build your own. But you can select industries for more suggestions, including Data Analysis, Engineering, Finance, Marketing, Product, and Sales. Each of these choices displays three different suggestion buttons. For example, under Sales, the Sales Emailer will write an email to a new contact, to reengage customers, to make an introductory offer, or to make a partnership proposal. These suggestions might be better for some users than a blank text box. After I provided the target customer and topic in testing, You.com generated a courteous, professional email. You can use ChatGPT-4.0 for results and display ads. Unlike Google Gemini, You.com recommended specific stocks when we asked for good dividend-bearing ones.
You.com offers apps for both mobile platforms, chatbots for WhatsApp and Telegram, and desktop extensions for Chromium and Firefox web browsers.
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