Brave Unveils Real-Time, Privacy-Centric AI Answer Engine for Enhanced Online Privacy

Brave, the privacy-focused browser startup, is enhancing Brave Search with an innovative real-time answer engine powered by artificial intelligence. This development aligns with trends set by major players like Google’s Search Generational Experience, Gemini, Microsoft’s Bing Copilot, and Perplexity AI. What distinguishes Brave is its commitment to privacy; it developed its AI features independently, without relying on Google’s or Microsoft’s search engines.

“With the new Brave Search and its integration of Answer with AI, users enjoy the advantage of generative answers alongside up-to-date links, delivering instant and relevant results,” said Josep Pujol, Brave’s Chief of Search.

Brave’s Answer with AI, accessible for free on both desktop and mobile, initially supports English, French, German, Italian, and Spanish. While functionality exists in additional languages, responses may default to English.

Brave’s AI interprets user queries across various intents, categorized as follows:

- Navigational: Searches for specific sites (e.g., "Facebook," "Twitter").

- Informational: Queries for structured real-time data (e.g., currency conversion, weather, sports results) or question-like inquiries (e.g., "How do I find north when hiking?").

- Commercial: Searches aimed at finding or researching products and services.

- Transactional: Queries that intend to complete an action (e.g., purchasing a product).

To utilize the feature, users simply tap the icon next to the search bar. The responses are not limited to text; they also include multimedia elements like informational cards and images—similar to Google's search results.

“Search engines have evolved through numerous iterations, from directory listings to featured snippets,” Pujol explained. “The Brave Search Answer with AI feature transforms this model. An answer engine aims to directly respond to questions instead of merely linking to websites. Thanks to advancements in large language models (LLMs), integrated answer engines are now scalable.”

Integrating AI into its search platform is a strategic move for Brave to compete with tech giants like Microsoft and Google. Pujol emphasized Brave's unique approach: “We focus more on the how than the what. Brave provides choice and competition in a market dominated by Big Tech, all while adhering to strong privacy standards. We do not collect user queries or create sessions or profiles in any form.”

Pujol recognizes AI's influence on search traffic but assures that Brave seeks to support publishers. “Brave goes beyond typical answer engines by directly attributing sources in its synthesized answers. This is an issue that cannot be resolved by a single entity, especially one with a smaller market share like Brave.”

Answer with AI is not Brave’s first endeavor with AI technology. The browser features an AI assistant named Leo, which incorporated support for Mixtral 8x7B this year. Additionally, Brave employs machine learning for its advertising platform and launched Summarizer for Brave Search in 2023, providing instant answers without relying on third-party data sources.

While Brave Search's answer engine remains free for all users, the company hints at potential future premium offerings for enhanced experiences.