Brave Browser Now Features New AI-Powered Answer Engine for Search

Brave's AI Answer Engine is a new generative AI tool that allows users to enter a single query and receive a synthesized summary with source citations from multiple sources, alongside traditional search results. It uses Brave’s independent search index, which is designed to be free of SEO spam and junk content.

Brave ensures privacy with its AI Answer Engine by not collecting user queries or creating session profiles for ad-retargeting. The AI answers are based solely on the results of a user’s query rather than their user profile or search history, putting privacy-preserving features at the forefront.

Brave's AI Search Engine uses a technique called retrieval augmented generation (RAG), which is popular for enhancing the accuracy and relevancy of responses from AI chatbots. This technique is grounded by answers on pages indexed by Brave Search.

Since the debut of its generative AI feature, Brave has seen an increase in its user base from 57.8 million monthly active users in March 2023 to 73.3 million in the following months. Daily active users also rose from 21.7 million to 26.3 million during the same period.

While Brave's AI Answer Engine currently does not feature ads, there is potential for ads to be integrated in the future. Brave's Chief of Search, Josep Pujol, mentioned that ads could be featured in the area taken by the answers, similar to how they are in the results area. Any ads would be clearly labeled to distinguish sponsored content from organic results.