Ask Brave: new AI-powered search feature launches on Brave Search

Are AI powered search engines the future of search? Classic search engines such as Google Search or Microsoft Bing are getting AI-feature infusions to compete with new AI-based search engines.
Brave Search, one of the few independent search engines available on today’s Internet, is now getting its own AI treatment upgrade. Called Ask Brave, it brings more AI functionality to the search engine.
For Brave Software, the maker of the Brave browser and search engine, it is a matter of making things more convenient for users. Users “no longer have to choose between different tools depending on the action they want to perform”, the company writes on its official web blog. The combination of organic search results with AI in a single interface “combines the best of both approaches”, according to Brave Software.
Users can use Ask Brave from the official start page of the service or from any search results page. There they find the Ask tab at the very top of the page. Activation opens a chat interface that input and processes it when the Enter-key is pressed.
From here, it works similarly to other AI chat interfaces. You get a reply from the KI, which happened really fast in tests, and may ask follow-up questions.
Evolution of Brave Search’s AI functionality

This is an evolution of existing AI systems that Brave introduced in search in 2023. Brave Search back then displayed summaries at the top, which were later replaced by a more potent system that provided answers to user requests. Ask Brave, unlike the current AI Answers system, complements the former and supports follow-up questions.
Brave Search continues to display information for many queries at the top, similarly to how Google began to display AI overviews in Google Search. Ask Brave is an evolutionary step that introduces direct AI interactions on Brave Search.
Brave Software says that the provided answers are always “grounded in information found on the Web”, so that “the AI is less likely to hallucinate or provide irrelevant information”.
User questions and conversations with the AI are never used for AI training, according to Brave Software. Furthermore, chats are “encrypted, ephemeral and expire by default after 24 hours of inactivity”. IP addresses are also not retained, according to the company.
Brave Search users do not have to use Ask Brave if they do not want to. While there is no option yet to disable the entire feature, users can already disable the automatic generation of summaries in Brave Search. There is a good chance that Brave Software will extend the functionality to the Ask portion of its search in the future.
For now, ignoring the Ask button is the only viable option to avoid interacting with the AI on Brave Search.
Now You: have you tried AI-based searches in the past? What was your experience? Do you use AI regularly when you search or prefer traditional search options? Feel free to leave a comment down below.
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