The Best AI Search Engines for 2024
When ChatGPT launched in late 2022, it quickly gained popularity due to its ability to respond to any question with conversational and concise answers. However, one major feature was missing – access to current information. To fill this gap, AI-powered search engines emerged, infusing generative AI into their platforms. In this article, we’ll explore the best AI search engines of 2024, including Perplexity AI, ChatGPT, Microsoft Bing, Google, You.com, and Brave Search.
Perplexity AI: The Best AI Search Engine Overall
Perplexity AI has been built from scratch as an AI search engine, offering a unique interface that blends the best features of AI chatbots and search engines. Upon entering a search query, the results page provides several links at the top, which is helpful if you use Perplexity as a search engine to find the most relevant website. The results include conversational, concise, bulleted AI-generated answers with footnotes and website links. Additionally, the "related" section encourages discovery, making it a great option for users who want to explore related topics.
ChatGPT: A Great Option for Those Familiar with ChatGPT
If you’re already familiar with ChatGPT, you’ll appreciate its search feature, which keeps all the standout ChatGPT features, including speed, accuracy, and UI. The search feature allows you to enter your sentence as your thoughts unfold, and the tool will understand the meaning of your query by leveraging its NLP capabilities. However, you’ll need a ChatGPT Plus subscription, which costs $20 monthly. OpenAI plans to make this feature available to free users in the coming months.
Microsoft Bing: A Great Integration of AI into an Existing Search Engine
Microsoft infused its Bing search engine with its AI chatbot, Copilot, resulting in a significant increase in daily active users, with over 40 million new users during the past year. In my testing, Copilot has proven to be an extremely competitive chatbot, offering features that make it a more attractive option than ChatGPT. The integration of Copilot in Bing allows users to experience high-quality responses when searching for anything through the box at the top of the search page results.
Google: A Great Option for Google Users
If you’re a loyal Google user, you’ll appreciate Google’s Search Generative Experience (SGE), which offers AI-generated insights at the top of your search results. This means that when you type a search query into Google that could be optimized by AI overviews (which isn’t every entry), Google will automatically show you the AI insights.
You.com: A Great Option for Those Who Want Variety in LLMs
You.com offers a conversational response with added footnotes that users can click on to verify the source and visit the website. The tool also includes a "People also ask" section underneath its response and a "private mode", similar to Google’s incognito mode. One of the standout features is the ability to toggle between the most popular AI models on the market using the Custom Model Selector, including GPT-4 Turbo, Anthropic’s Claude, and more.
Brave Search: A Great Option for Those Who Value Privacy
Brave Search’s appeal comes from its increased privacy and security features, including blocking trackers and ads on websites, which also helps improve device battery life and browsing speeds. Recently, Brave added an "Answer with AI" feature that infuses generative AI into the search engine, offering an experience nearly identical to those in the tools above while keeping the security features users enjoy.
Comparison and Conclusion
I tested every AI search engine on the list across factors critical to users, including price, quality of AI-enabled insights, user interface, and LLM. Ultimately, I picked Perplexity AI as the best AI search engine overall due to its unique interface and features that most users can benefit from. However, you can choose from many AI search engines that might be better suited to your specific needs. For example, if you’re a loyal Google user, Google’s Search Generative Experience might be your best option.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: What is an AI search engine?
An AI search engine is a search engine that uses generative AI to provide AI-enabled insights in its search results.
Q: What is the difference between an AI chatbot and an AI search engine?
An AI chatbot is an application that uses generative AI to process a user’s input and provide a conversational response. An AI search engine produces similar output but is also connected to the internet.
Q: Are all AI search engines free to use?
Yes, all the AI search engines listed above are free to use. However, some offer premium subscription upgrades for more advanced LLMs.
