Imagine a search engine that doesn't just find information but understands it. One where you ask complex questions and receive answers backed by credible sources. This is the reality of generative artificial intelligence (GAI) search engines. These tools are changing how we interact with online information, combining AI with traditional search capabilities.
ChatGPT and similar GAI tools have taken the world by storm. Different models and products have strengths and weaknesses. Some GAI tools provide answers to queries, but those answers have no supporting citations. The user is unsure if the response is fabricated, how current the information is and if there is bias. Additionally, many lawyers worry about privacy and confidentiality.
There are some interesting tools on the market, however, that combine aspects of GAI with those of a search engine. You enter a query or prompt, and you get an answer. Some GAI search engines also display traditional search engine results. The response to the query will cite inline hyperlinked sources.
When using a GAI search engine, you will still need to assess the results. For instance, asking Copilot in Edge the difference between GAI tools and GAI search engines, Copilot suggested examples of GAI search engines include Bing AI and Google’s Bard. Google changed the name of the GAI model to Gemini in February 2024. What Copilot did get right is a key difference is that GAI tools focus on content creation, while the GAI search engines focus on information retrieval.
While Microsoft’s Bing and Google search both offer GAI results to search queries, links to citing sources are not consistent. Both will provide answers to prompts but, depending on where you access Bing’s Copilot (from the Edge browser or Windows OS) and whether you are logged in, the responses to queries may not provide supporting citations.
Depending on the query or prompt, results in Google’s Gemini more consistently cites sources. For instance, a query to find out the difference between cash and accrual accounting linked to sources in Gemini. A query asking Gemini to explain the Monroe Doctrine did not link to sources. In Gemini you can click on the Google symbol below the results to repeat the query in Google.
Additionally, even if you do get citations, clicking “copy” under the results in the two major players does not always include the citations as endnotes or hyperlinks.
There are a lot of tools on the market to compete with the search engine giants in the GAI search engine space.
Sourced entirely on scientific research, Consensus is an academic search engine powered by over 200 million academic papers in every field from the Semantic Scholar database.
Staring a search in Consensus leads to a familiar white box with a query box in the middle of the page. However, you can get right into a more sophisticated search by clicking on the Filter button to filter by date, type of research, country of origin, minimum number of citations and far more. Apply your filters and then run your research query.
The results page provides a summary of findings followed by a longer analysis created by the Consensus Copilot. The analysis links to citations. You can click a citation to review the source study, which includes links to citations and “influential citations,” as well as a one click button to create a citation in a variety of styles (APA, MLA, Chicago, etc.). Consensus makes it easy to review the AI results and the citing documents in summary and in full text.
Some of the more interesting features of Consensus include the “Consensus Meter.” When asked a yes or no question the meter shows, by number of papers analyzed, the percentage “yes,” “no” or “possibly” in response.
You can export all the papers cited in the results in CSV format. The resulting spreadsheet includes the title, takeaway, authors, year, citation, abstract, study type, journal and link to the full text. You can share the summary by copying the page link. If you share a link to results with someone else, they do not need a Consensus login to see the results.
Consensus is a freemium product. The free plan has unlimited searches and unlimited quality indicators, but there are limits on study snapshots, bookmarks and GPT-4 Pro Analyses. For $108 a year the Premium version removes those limitations. There are team and enterprise plans as well.
According to Search Engine Journal, Andi Search is a privacy-first AI search engine that ranks above You.com, Google Gemini, ChatGPT and Perplexity. Like several other GAI tools, the search box is at the bottom of the page. There is an Andi Progressive Web App, instructions to add to your mobile device home screen and a Chrome extension.
Andi’s focus on privacy means that you do not need to create a login. The site doesn’t store cookies or your IP address. You must grant permission for it to use location. Andi doesn’t share customer data with third parties or display advertising.
In Settings you will note that Andi is in Alpha development stage. The start-up is backed by Y Combinator and others.
When you prompt/query Andi you will be shown limited search results on the main screen and more results on a side bar to the right. In addition to text results, you can toggle over to images and videos. In the search results in the right panel, you can change the view to a feed, grid, list, simple list or even “classic Google.” You can refine the search by searching within the results, looking at related searches and even running the search on other search engines. In the Feed view of the results under each webpage you can visit the site or use the GAI to read a simplified version, prompt for a summary or to have the page explained to you.
You can prompt Andi to generate an answer to see a GAI summary of all the results by clicking “Generate Answer” on the main screen. The GAI result “Andi’s Writeup” includes hyperlinked endnotes. The Copy button at the bottom of the writeup pastes the text with endnotes.
In addition to searching the web, Andi will also respond to commands to open websites like Amazon or Spotify. Simply type “Go Spotify.” It also works with DuckDuckGo! bang parameters. Andi has a list of commands and shortcuts.
In addition to not requiring a login, Andi appears to be completely free with unlimited use for now.
You.com has gotten quite a bit of press. It is ad-supported and combines a large language model (LLM) with citations to websites. The You.com interface looks remarkably like Perplexity. You will need to create a login to use You.com. According to the About page, You AI conducts searches, runs code, generates images and uses tools to enhance productivity. There are apps for iOS and Android, and a Chrome extension.
On the main You screen there are options for Research, Genius for multistep problems, Creative for visual creations or you can build a custom agent. You can also choose your LLM, from GPT to Claude to Gemini and many more. Some models require a Pro plan.
In the default Smart mode users can choose a topic like Marketing, Sales, Engineering, Data Analysis or Finance. You can also upload single files, up to 5 MB max for free accounts. Choosing a topic like Marketing shows you ideas like SEO content crafter or writing content to align with your brand voice.
The Research mode is the GAI search engine. The query “What are some profitable alternatives to the billable hour for law firms to use for billing?” first shows the sources it is looking at and then it delivers a research report. Citations are hyperlinked and there are suggestions for additional queries. Unfortunately, when copied and pasted into a document, the hyperlinks to the source materials do not appear.
In the Download options you can get a mobile app, extensions or interface with You via WhatsApp or Telegram.
As a freemium product, free use is limited. The Pro plan at $15 per month billed annually increases the size of file uploads, includes access to all AI models and adds a context window. Users also need to have the Team or Enterprise versions to eliminate model training and data retention.
Phind describes itself as an AI answer engine for developers. However, it is useful as an AI search engine. You can type in a natural language search and receive a summary AI created report with links to web resources. The sources are hyperlinked footnotes, with the websites appearing to the right side of the results.
At the bottom of the results there are suggested follow-up questions. The button to share results has an option to “copy this answer” but it doesn’t copy the endnotes. The Copy button, however, will copy the results and citations.
When you query Phind you can choose the model you want, including three options from Phind, GPT-4o, Claude 3.5 Sonnet and Claude Opus. Several of these models are only available through the Pro plan.
While you do not have to create a login to use Phind, if you do create a login you can create an answer profile that takes into account preferences for how creative or precise you want it to be, and also create a user profile so you do not have to add more context to the prompts.
Phind is a freemium product. With Phind Pro you get unlimited Phind LLM searches, 500-plus daily uses of GPT-4, several Claude models, multi-query search mode, image analysis, 32,000-character context length, data excluded from training by opt-out and the ability to run and test code in-browser. The annual plan is $17 per month.
Exa is “web search rebuilt for LLMs.” According to the FAQs “offering both proprietary neural search and industry-standard keyword search.” Interestingly, the FAQ also describes how Exa is different from Google and from LLMs, combining proprietary neural search and keyword search to get the best of both.
On the home page you can choose the Exa API or Exa Search. The Exa Search home page makes it easy to see all the available options without having to explore “more” buttons. You can choose a neural search and use a prompt, and switch to Autosearch to let the tool decide whether keywords or neural search is best. Toggle on Autoprompt to get help refining your prompting. On the right you can choose a category including company, news, blog posts and more. You can even use it to search a personal site by typing in a URL. You can limit your query parameters by publishing date, domain filters to include or exclude a specific domain, phrase filter to search only in title, content or URL and specify the number of results.
What is interesting about the results in Exa is that instead of an AI summary response you get a standard list of search engine results. Each linked site showed the URL, page title and the age of the page. If you click the “i” for symbol next to the site you can see a page summary, see similar results, and chat with the result.
In “Chat with Result” you can select multiple results. For instance, a search for “what are good compensation structures in a law firm to get associates to buy into partnership?” shows many results. Click the plus symbol to add results to a panel that opens on the right side. Then you can query just those sites and get a GAI response. There is no button to copy chat responses or hyperlink to the citations.
Another interesting feature is the Similar results search. In the list of results click the magnify icon and Exa will search for similar pages.
Exa is free to search. For Exa API there is a pay-as-you-go model. The paid models allow companies to use Exa to integrate live web data into their AI app, showing web results next to AI apps like Harvey and Centari.
Perplexity is one of the most popular AI search engines. The main screen has a big search box to type in a prompt. You can click on Focus to search the web; search for published academic papers; solve equations; search social media, images or video; or just generate text. You can attach text or PDF files.
Choose your focus and then type in a prompt. The response page will show sources at the top of the page with the GAI answer below, with hyperlinked endnotes. There are related queries below and a choice to add a follow-up prompt. Copying the response captures the endnote references and cited sources. You can also click on the ellipses at the bottom of the response to see the sources broken out in a panel on the right and remove some as necessary.
One particularly interesting feature of Perplexity is its ability to create Collections. You can run a query and click the Collection button at the top of the screen. You can give it a title and description, give instructions to the AI that will affect every thread in the collection and share it with others. As you query Perplexity you can add your prompts and results to the Collection.
You can use Perplexity without a login; however, a free login allows you to sign out of all sessions, opt out of AI data retention and create a profile to get more personalized answers.
Perplexity is a freemium model. Free includes unlimited quick searches plus five pro searches daily. Pro at $20 per month lets you select your preferred AI models, upload and analyze unlimited files and use the API.
The impact of GAI search engines will not only be a fundamental shift in how people search for information, but it will also create new challenges for law firm SEO (search engine optimization). If your firm is spending money on a marketing company, make sure to discuss what needs to be done to have your website best positioned for these new tools.
Hubspot’s AI Search Grader is a free tool to help you check how visible your brand is in AI-powered search engines. The tool isn’t looking for your website’s URL, but rather your firm name, company type and product or service. Be prepared for the brave new world and how your firm shows up. The AI search grader suggests that “According to the Wall Street Journal, publishers estimate that they will lose between 20% and 40% of their Google-generated organic traffic as AI search iterations of the search engine continue to roll out.”
GAI search engines are revolutionizing how we access and interact with information online. By combining the power of LLMs with traditional search capabilities, these tools offer more nuanced, context-aware results with cited sources. From specialized platforms like Consensus for academic research to privacy-focused options like Andi and Brave, users now have a range of choices to suit their specific needs.
As these technologies continue to evolve, they will reshape not only how we search for information but also how businesses improve their online presence. Law firms and other organizations will need to adapt their SEO strategies to still be visible in this new landscape. While challenges remain, particularly around privacy and the accuracy of AI-generated content, GAI search engines are a significant step forward in making vast amounts of information more.
