Google’s Gemini and Microsoft’s Copilot 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.
AI can palpably improve the web search experience, and I’ve found Copilot a productivity booster when it comes to research. Whereas I used to have to pore over multiple web pages in standard search results, I can now often find the kernel of knowledge I’m after with just one text prompt. Additionally, if an initial answer isn’t quite what I’m looking for, AI search bots keep track of my previous requests to give my follow-up questions context. That means I don’t have to keep rephrasing my whole query the way I 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 wholly run on generative AI.
Generative AI and chatbots typically rely on large language models (LLM) that train on a set of information 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.
Recommended by Our Editors
Keep in mind that, like all the generative AI tools, the search engines listed below might make mistakes, just like humans do occasionally. 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, is well-suited 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, along with additional web links in a side panel. A Summarize Results option takes longer and generates a write-up with a more detailed explanation. You can sort the responses by News, Results, and Video, depending on the query. 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. It won’t immediately write a cover letter, give you a complete recipe for asparagus au gratin, or plan a trip itinerary either, though it can find quality sites that help you do those things.
A Generate Text button at the bottom of the results uses generative AI to create such content; 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 doesn’t show ads at present, 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. Unfortunately, its info isn’t always up to the moment: Although it knew that the Eagles won the 2025 Super Bowl in a direct search for that answer, my search for the best NFL team of 2025 mentioned only playoff seeds. As such, 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 Followup 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, which is an advantage over traditional web searches. The search result has Copy Link and Share buttons. You can switch to a mode that sends prompts to ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini. Finally, Bagoodex can generate images using Flux and Recraft models, which deliver impressive results quickly.
The site is completely free and free of ads at this point (the company hasn’t announced monetization plans). It also doesn’t require a sign-in, as some other services here do.
Most Advanced AI Model
OpenAI’s ChatGPT, the service that popularized generative AI, now works for regular web searches. Simply click on the globe icon within the interface to access it. Just as with standard ChatGPT, you can ask follow-up questions, and the service maintains the context of your conversations. It even uses the same state-of-the-art ChatGPT-4o model to understand and put together answers to your queries. 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.
Originally only for ChatGPT Plus subscribers ($20 per month), the search feature is now available to free users and allows speech input.
There are apps (that require account sign-in) for Android, iOS, and macOS, while a Chrome browser extension is available if you decide to make ChatGPT your default browser search engine.
ChatGPT Review
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. If you sign in, you can choose an AI model: the basic Komo Search, GPT-4o mini (faster), GPT-4o (deeper knowledge), Claude 3 Haiku (fast), and Claude 3.5 Sonnet (strong reasoning). 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 I haven’t seen equivalent options in other AI chatbots aside from Microsoft Copilot’s less specific Balanced, Creative, and Precise choices. 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), gets you Personas. The $24-per-month Premium tier (also billed annually) adds generative AI model selection and more advanced query sessions.
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 with 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 lets you save your previous queries. Those are cleverly named Threads (not to be confused with the Twitter-like Threads social network). You save these in your Library, and you can add follow-up queries to them. All the AI chatbots I’ve used suggest follow-up questions, so this is hardly unique.
Perplexity’s result page is busier than those of most of the other sites here since it includes buy tiles and source links with images. In previous testing, I didn’t see answers until I scrolled down past these, but the ad tiles are helpfully now below the results. Another difference compared with most of the AI search sites is that Perplexity has a Discover page that looks very 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, more AI model choices, and more sources. They also include searching within Spaces. Perplexity offers apps for Android and iOS, as well as 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 productivity platform” 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, Creative, Genius (for multi-step problems), and “Build your own custom agent.” 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 choice will write an email for a new contact, to reengage customers, or draft 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. The site uses ChatGPT-4.o for results and display ads. Unlike Google Gemini, You.com recommended specific stocks when I 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.
