It’s true, traditional search engines can feel like a labyrinth of ads and irrelevant links, often leaving us without the answers we need. But what if AI could cut through the noise and deliver precise, summarized information directly to you? That’s exactly what a new wave of AI search engines is doing, leveraging the power of AI chatbots to transform the way we find information online.
These AI-powered tools act like your personal research assistant. Instead of sifting through countless URLs, they pinpoint the most relevant links, summarize their content, and present it to you in an easy-to-digest format. This means no more endless scrolling or navigating pop-ups—just the information you need, fast.
I’ve tested the top AI search engines to see how they stack up, and here’s what I found.
What Makes an AI Search Engine Stand Out?
Traditional search engines rely on complex algorithms that consider factors like keyword relevance, website authority, content quality, and user engagement. They aim to provide you with the most helpful list of responses.
AI search engines take this a step further. While they still use these foundational systems, their primary goal is to directly answer your question. They process the gathered information through an AI model, which then summarizes it into a few paragraphs, usually with cited sources. This is where AI’s natural language understanding shines, allowing it to interpret your queries even if you don’t use specific keywords.
The user experience remains largely the same at the start: you type your query into a search box. However, the difference is immediate. The AI search engine attempts to produce an answer right at the top of the page. If you need more detail or want to explore further, you can still scroll down and click on web links as you would with a traditional search engine. Crucially, many AI search engines also allow you to ask follow-up questions, building on your previous query without requiring you to re-enter information—a significant advantage over conventional search.
In my testing, I focused on identifying AI search engines that genuinely improved the traditional search experience. Any tool that demanded more clicks, provided unhelpful results, or had a poor user experience was not included. This rigorous evaluation led me to confidently recommend the following three AI search engines.
The Best AI Search Engines at a Glance
| Best For | Standout Feature | Pricing |
| Perplexity | The best overall AI search experience | Free for most features; $20/month for premium |
| Google AI Mode | Combining traditional search with AI for up-to-date information | Free; Gemini Advanced for $19.99/month |
| Arc Search | Mobile AI search with a unique “Browse for Me” feature | Free on iOS and iPad |
Perplexity: The Best AI Search Experience Overall
Perplexity is an AI search engine built from the ground up, designed to provide a conversational interface rather than just a list of links.
- Perplexity Pros: Excellent user experience, the ability to organize searches for later review.
- Perplexity Cons: Can sometimes struggle with highly current events.
When you ask Perplexity a question, you’ll see a generated answer followed by a text box for follow-up questions. It intelligently remembers the context of your previous query. For instance, if you ask about Barack Obama’s presidency length, you can then simply ask “how old was he,” and Perplexity will provide his age during his terms without you needing to re-specify “he” is Obama.
Another powerful feature of Perplexity’s conversational layout is the ability to browse your past search threads and even save collections of pages, which is fantastic for organizing research.
Perplexity leverages a combination of trust signals from Google, Bing, and its own web crawlers to identify the most reliable sources. In my tests, Perplexity consistently delivered accurate data, often negating the need to delve into the source links myself. Its generative AI algorithms rarely produced fabricated information or relied on obscure, outdated websites. However, it’s worth noting that Perplexity has faced criticism for occasionally fabricating information and plagiarism, so always verify critical information, as you should with any AI tool.
Perplexity does seem to lag slightly with ongoing events. For example, a query about Wimbledon scores might pull up last year’s results instead of the latest matches. Similarly, it’s not ideal for breaking news; a search for “supreme court” might yield a general explanation of the institution rather than details about a recent controversial ruling.
Beyond text, Perplexity offers additional AI-powered research tools. It can generate synthetic images, and Pro accounts allow you to upload and query local documents on your device.
Perplexity integrates with Zapier, enabling you to automate research by routing answers to your other business tools.
- Perplexity Pricing: Most features are free. Premium features like document upload and access to more powerful AI models cost $20/month.
Google AI Mode: Combining Traditional Search with AI
Google now offers the best of both worlds, integrating a traditional search engine with generative AI. Its AI Overviews previously offered a summary of sources at the top of traditional search results, but now AI Mode takes this further.
- Google AI Mode Pros: Seamlessly toggle between traditional and AI search; it’s within the search engine you already use.
- Google AI Mode Cons: Fewer integrations compared to Google’s standalone chatbot, Gemini.
AI Mode functions similarly to Perplexity: you type your query, and it provides a summarized answer based on web sources, along with a brief list of clickable links. Because it’s integrated into Google Search, you can easily switch to other tabs like News to verify or supplement your findings, or revert to All for standard Google Search results. This integration makes it a more comprehensive search experience than Google’s standalone chatbot, Gemini.
In my use, Google’s AI Mode generally produced authoritative responses with solid sources. However, I did encounter minor inaccuracies, such as recommending DALL·E 3 as the top AI image generator, even though it’s now considered an older model.
- Google AI Mode Pricing: Free to use and available to adults in the U.S. with a personal Google account. You’ll need to opt into it via Search Labs if it’s available to you.
Arc Search: The Best Mobile AI Search Engine
Arc Search uniquely combines a browser, search engine, and AI into a powerful mobile Browse experience, automating the process of finding and organizing information.
- Arc Search Pros: Automates research, ideal for mobile use.
- Arc Search Cons: Exclusively available on iPhones and iPads; requires using the Arc browser.
With Arc Search’s “Browse for Me” option, the AI bot takes over the typical manual research journey—opening multiple links and collecting information—and creates a new, dedicated web page from its findings.
For example, if you ask Arc Search about the U.S. Open’s first rounds, it quickly generates a tab with all the information organized into various segments. It might start with an overview of key match results, followed by sections like “Notable Upsets” and “Men’s Single Highlights.” You can tap any heading for more detail and even share a link to this compiled report.
I found Arc Search particularly useful on my iPhone, where screen space and time for manual research are limited. The automation significantly streamlines the process, and its detailed reports are often more helpful than simple summaries, especially for broader queries.
However, Arc Search isn’t without its quirks. In one instance with the U.S. Open digest, it included information from 2022 despite my query for 2023. Correcting these inaccuracies requires regenerating the report, which can take a bit longer than Perplexity’s or Google’s summaries.
The Arc browser is also available on macOS and Windows, though its search functionality differs. If you appreciate Arc Search on mobile, consider trying the browser for a more consistent experience across your devices.
- Arc Search Pricing: Free on iOS and iPadOS.
What About Other AI Search Engines?
While the above three stood out, the AI search engine landscape is constantly expanding. Here are a few other notable players and why they didn’t make my top recommendations:
- Brave Search: While Brave, the privacy-focused web browser, offers an AI search engine, its proprietary search index sometimes struggles to fetch current facts, often providing information no more recent than 2022. Additionally, the privacy-conscious user base is still somewhat hesitant about AI integration, limiting its appeal for now.
- Microsoft Bing: Bing now offers AI-generated overviews alongside traditional search. However, in my testing, these overviews weren’t consistently useful (e.g., providing incorrect soccer results while accurate widgets were buried). I also found its interface cluttered with unnecessary pop-ups and reward systems. While Copilot offers useful follow-up questions, Bing’s overall search experience felt less refined.
- SearchGPT: OpenAI, the creators of ChatGPT, are developing an AI search engine. Unfortunately, I was unable to gain access during my testing, but I’m on the waitlist and eager to evaluate it once it becomes more widely available.
- You.com: You.com was an early adopter of AI capabilities in 2022. However, it has since shifted more towards being an AI assistant tool, offering modes like “Research” for long responses and “Genius” for visuals. Its search index isn’t as up-to-date with the latest information, making it more of a ChatGPT alternative than a direct competitor to Google.
The Future of AI Search
As the internet’s knowledge base continues to grow, and spam becomes more prevalent, traditional manual searching is becoming increasingly impractical. Generative AI presents a natural solution, though its exact role in the future of search remains to be seen.
While AI search shows immense promise, it’s not yet as consistently reliable or trustworthy as its traditional counterparts. Furthermore, a significant challenge lies in how AI search impacts the internet’s economic foundation. Search engines are crucial drivers of traffic and revenue for websites. AI search, by summarizing information, can potentially reduce direct traffic to these sites, potentially disrupting the existing ecosystem. Some companies, like Perplexity, are actively working on addressing this by ensuring proper attribution and potentially revenue sharing. Without sustainable models in place, AI search could have profound repercussions for how the internet functions.
Ultimately, each AI search engine currently caters to different needs: Arc Search is excellent for mobile Browse, Perplexity is a robust tool for in-depth research, and Google AI Mode offers a convenient AI enhancement to an already powerful, up-to-date traditional search engine. For now, you can choose the best AI search engine based on your specific query, as no single one truly checks all the boxes.
2 thoughts on “The best AI search engines”