Top AI Search Engines For 2025

Our everyday Internet search tools are undergoing a transformative shift. Traditional search engines that rely on keyword matching and page ranking algorithms are being augmented, or even replaced by new AI powered search engines. These new platforms combine the traditional search with the contextual understanding of large language models (LLMs), offering a more intuitive and personalized search experience and, as a result, saving a lot of time.

(By the way, if you're a website owner and prefer not to have your site indexed by AI, you can opt out in just a few minutes. Learn how here.)

Leading AI Search Engines

Below is a list of AI search engines that are redefining how we access information:

Google AI Overview

google.com/ai

Popularity: ★★★★★

Google has introduced a new AI-powered search engine that uses Google's Gemini 1.5 Pro model to provide a conversational search experience. The main advantage that it is integrated into Google Search and shows on top of search results if available. Typically, it shows for questions like requests. Currently it is estimated to show only for 15% of search requests.

ChatGPT Search

chatgpt.com/search

Popularity: ★★★★

ChatGPT Search is a new search engine which is built right into ChatGPT. To enable it you need to click on the planet button in the ChatGPT sidebar. It relies on ChatGPT to provide a conversational search experience, allowing users to ask questions, ask additional questions, ask and get answers using voice. The main advantage that it is integrated into ChatGPT so you can use it right away without switching. As of November 2024, it requires paid account ($20/month) and not available in free version.

Google Gemini

gemini.google.com

Popularity: ★★

Google Gemini is a standalone chat-like AI engine that provides a conversational search experience. It is simlar to ChatGPT and competes with it but less popular.

Brave Search

search.brave.com

Popularity: ★★

Made by the authors of Brave Browser, Brave Search focuses on privacy while offering AI-powered summaries of search results and allowing you to select follow-up questions. Its key benefit is delivering relevant search outcomes without tracking or profiling users. It's entirely free to use.

Perplexity AI

perplexity.ai

Popularity: ★

Perplexity AI delivers search results that are followed by a conversational search experience, allowing users to ask predefined or custom follow-up questions and organize their searches seamlessly. Its main benefit is that it provides a way to ask custom follow-up questions and also can focus on limited types of sources, for example, on social media only. Most features are free, but you can use more advanced AI for analyzing search results with a premium subscription available at $20/month.

Microsoft Bing AI

bing.com

Popularity: ★

Microsoft Bing has incorporated OpenAI's GPT-4 technology to provide a CoPilot that provides a summary of search results and allows you to follow up with additional questions via a chat-like interface. The standout benefit is its ability to upload images for follow-up questions. It's free but is limited to four follow-up questions and does not support AI when Safe Search mode is on.

You.com

you.com

Popularity: ★

You.com offers a personalized and collaborative search experience, allowing you to select agents which provide customized output, or even build your own custom agent that will tailor search results to your requirements. Its main benefit is customization, allowing you to adjust your search experience to suit your needs. The platform provides basic features for free but requires you to sign up. Premium plans are available.

Andi Search

andisearch.com

Popularity: ★

Andi Search combines a chatbot with a search engine, providing comprehensive results that include images and summaries. The main advantage is its visually rich interface that not only summarizes answers but also shows references in large visual cards (like a presentation), which makes information easier to digest. It's free to use.

DuckDuckGo's DuckAssist

duckduckgo.com

Popularity: ★

DuckDuckGo is a privacy-focused search engine, and DuckAssist enhances the DuckDuckGo search experience by offering natural language summaries using AI, all while maintaining strict user privacy. Its main benefit is delivering quick, summarized answers without requiring you to log in and without tracking. It's free to use and also provides a free AI Chat page where you can use GPT-4, Mistral, Llama, and other famous AI models without signing up and without tracking.

Looking Ahead

AI search engines are not just a glimpse into the future. They are already saving time for web search, helping to quickly digest a lot of information and transforming the way we find information online. By combining the traditional "search" indexing approach with the contextual understanding of AI, they offer more personalized, efficient, and intelligent search (and research!) experiences.

For website owners, this shift to AI-powered search engines presents both new opportunities and new challenges.