Brave Search Brings 'Answer With AI' Feature For Users: All Details

Brave Search has got a new AI update which assists users in finding answers to whatever questions they may have while browsing online. According to the company’s blog post, the search engine now “synthesises information from multiple sources into a single, intelligible answer to almost any query.”

The new 'Answer with AI' feature provides responses to your queries in a clean and simply structured fashion for questions such as “People who walked on the moon” and “List of directors for Batman movies.” According to Brave, it can also help summarise reviews and highlight the distinctive features of particular sites such as restaurants.

It provides near-instant responses referencing sources alongside regular search results, works regardless of browser or platform, and appears to be an update to the search engine’s ‘Summarise’ function from last year.

While 'Answer with AI' will automatically show the search results in a summarised fashion, it may also be triggered manually for searches that do not fall within Brave’s predefined search parameters.

As per Brave, the new functionality employs a combination of large language models (LLMs), with Mixtral 8x7B and Mistral 7B serving as major models in addition to custom big language models.

“The user only needs to enter a query as they are used to doing with a regular search engine. The query will then be internally converted to an LLM prompt using the data from search results as context to the prompt, with typical RAG (retrieval augmented generation),” said Josep Pujol, head of search at Brave, as per TechCrunch.

Several research in recent months have shown that AI-powered searches may have a negative influence on the internet. While Brave claims to use AI to provide solutions, the company is aware that this method may harm publishers that produce high-quality material.

Other popular search engines, such as Google and Bing, have also implemented AI-powered replies, with Google’s Search Generative Experience available as an experimental feature in Google Labs. However, organisations such as Perplexity and You.com appear to be leveraging artificial intelligence as an alternative to traditional search queries.