What to know
- Brave Search, a search engine by the web browser Brave, now has a chat mode for its ‘Answer with AI’ search result summary feature.
- Go to search.brave.com, type your query and get the AI-powered summaries at the top. Click on ‘More’ and ask follow up questions.
- If you don’t automatically get AI-summaries, click on the ‘Answer with AI’ icon next to the magnifying glass icon. Alternatively, select the option from the recommended search options.
Brave is among the few alternatives to Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge that is taking AI search into its own hands. The company’s home-grown search engine ‘Brave Search’ that was decked with a ‘Answer with AI’ feature, similar to Google’s AI Overviews, now has a chat mode as well. But there are several differences that make the AI on Brave Search stand out. Here’s everything you need to know about the conversational AI search in Brave (and how to use it).
How to ‘Answer with AI’ in Brave Search
Brave’s AI Search is best used on the Brave web browser. But you can use the AI features by visiting its search engine as well. Here’s how to go about it:
Step 1: Open search.brave.com, type in your query and hit Enter.
If you’re using the Brave web browser or have Brave search as your default search engine, simply conduct your search from the address bar.
Step 2: Depending on your search, the AI will automatically kick in and provide its summaries.
If you don’t see the AI answer, you can manually activate it by clicking on the ‘Answer with AI’ icon next to the magnifying glass icon.
Alternatively, you can also select Answer with AI from the recommended search results (and use the up arrow to highlight it).
Step 3: Click on ‘More’ to see the full answer.
Step 4: To follow up on your query and get additional answers, use the ‘Ask a follow-up question’
Step 5: The AI will answer your questions based on the context of the chat. If there’s additional search done, the same will be highlighted in red and the sources will be provided next to it.
Step 6: You can resume the conversation even after you close the chat by clicking on the Resume conversation box in the AI section.
Brave Search’s ‘Answer with AI’ works perfectly well on the mobile platform as well.
How does Brave’s ‘Answer with AI’ compare with other search engines with AI
Most search engines with AI have trouble understanding context or maintaining it for long conversations. On the other hand the AI chatbots have trouble getting relevant results and casting a wide search net. Brave Search positions itself between these extremes and tries to balance traditional search with conversational and contextual AI chat.
Brave also handles privacy better. The company mentions:
Chats are ephemeral by default and expire within six hours. An option to save chats to Brave’s Leo AI assistant is coming soon.
In the tug of war between traditional search engines like Google and AI chatbots like ChatGPT wading into search engine territory, Brave’s new AI-powered Search is a breath of fresh air. By implementing the best of both worlds and doing it better than companies on either end, Brave is carving out a space for itself and making AI search more convenient.
