When ChatGPT first came out, people called it a Google replacement, which is pretty valid. The AI chatbot almost always provides a detailed explanation for everything, even the odd specific request. On the contrary, with Google, there is a lot of research to get to what you want. This is not to say that using traditional search engines is a painstaking process – it’s just that human laziness always makes us wonder, “Is there an easier way?” forces to ask the question.
And this is where artificial intelligence search engines come into play. Using the magic of this artificial intelligence, they take on the task of digging and provide more relevant information. They also overcome the biggest drawback of ChatGPT – the lack of internet access, which means real-time data retrieval.
Google already does something similar with Featured Snippets, but the feature basically picks a snippet from a top website and displays it to the user. Artificial intelligence search engines are trying to extend this ability by acting in a more human-like manner. In the simplest sense, they are to read then through information on the internet explain to the user in their own words. The output using this method is often more specific and thus easier to understand.
Citations AI makes it easier to trust search engines (Express photo)
Privacy-focused search engine You.com was among the first to implement such a feature. Searching for it now will also allow a chatbot similar to ChatGPT to take a stab at your query. A bot called YouChat is offered as an alternative way to search for something on You. In limited testing of the product, we found it to be “helpful” in its responses. But there’s one small quirk – the feature doesn’t automatically work its magic when you’re searching for something. Accessing it requires an additional step. You should go to the “Chat” section.
How Neeva is different
Then there is Neeva’s application. Obviously, the AI search engine is more confident in its abilities because you don’t need to go to a separate page/section to access the AI-generated search results – instead, you get it right at the top.
The main difference between Neeva and Your interfaces is that while you use a ChatGPT-like UI, Neeva’s output is similar to Google’s featured snippets, which pulls a snippet from the top result and displays it at the top of the page. In other words, the AI-generated answer is the first thing you see when you search for something on Neeva. All you need to do to get started is to create a Neeva account, otherwise it chooses to remain a “dumb” search engine.
NeevaAI is very detailed in its answers and provides quotes like You.com (Express photo)
However, not all queries trigger Neeva’s AI. You only get AI search results for queries that can be better answered with AI-generated answers, or at least that’s what it seemed to us. Asking for today’s weather shows the classic weather widget, because that’s obviously a better way to see the weather. While co-founder Ramaswmy Sridhar Neeva said the AI will start doing more searches “in the coming months,” the AI is mostly only getting started for queries phrased as questions.
Quality
– Triggers only on question-y queries, not heads [weather] or navigation [hacker news] and others.
– Says “AI can’t answer” when you ask certain answerable questions (middle name for someone who isn’t one).
– Semantically identical queries can return very different results!2/8 pic.twitter.com/4D8hdWDqdp
— Deedy (@debarghya_das) January 7, 2023
Neeva also does a better job than You.com of spotting irrelevant questions or questions that don’t really have an answer. When asked about Virat Kohli’s middle name, You.com replied that it is actually his father’s name, ‘Prem’. Meanwhile, Neeva chose not to respond at all because “there are not enough pages or facts to respond.”
The road ahead
6/ The future of AI and search is bright, and we’re grateful to help unlock its power for everyone 🔐
With your support, we will continue to push the boundaries of what is possible with search
Our summaries will be richer (better name clarification coming soon!) and more task specific
— ramaswamy.eth (@RamaswmySridhar) January 6, 2023
In addition to Neeva AI driving more searches in the coming months, Neeva co-founder Sridhar Ramaswamy also plans to enrich AI summaries (with better name clarification soon) and more task-specific ones. Currently, Neeva AI sometimes confuses the data of multiple identities when their names are the same.