Brave Search dives into AI with a healthy touch of skepticism
2023 seems to be the year of AI research. Since the beginning of the year, Microsoft and Google have launched AI augmentations on their flagship product. Now a small but notable competitor, Brave, is joining them. But Brave seems to be taking a more cautious approach to the 2023 AI trend.
In a blog post this week, Brave announced "Summarizer," a new AI-powered feature for Brave Search. Summarizer works much like Google's answer box. When you type a question or other query into the search bar, Brave displays a brief summary of the answer to your question or summarizes the critical points of the terms you search for.
For example, when you type "How much storage space do you get in an iPhone 14?" the first entry on the results page comes from reading the summary, “The iPhone 14 (and iPhone 14 Plus) comes with 128GB, 256GB, or 512GB of storage. And he provides links to where he pulled this information.
How Brave integrates AI into search results is quite different from how Microsoft and Google approach new technology. Instead of giving users a chatbot to talk to, the Brave AI gives a short answer and cites its sources without the ability to follow up with another question or refine the results like with Bing or Bard, which produce much longer answers. and allow users to continue the conversation.
The difference, according to Brave, has to do with the reliability of the Large Language Models (LLMs) employed by Microsoft, Google and even OpenAI (creator of ChatGPT). Rather than relying on a purely generative AI model, Brave trained its AI to take into account the multiple sources of information available on the web to synthesize accurate and up-to-date answers.
However, the creators of Brave remain wary of the new technology and justify their approach halfway by stating, "...if used correctly, these new models can help the user navigate the results. , which is the approach we follow with the Summarizer. Chat-like interfaces and Oracle-based search are still untested, and to date we remain skeptical of their usefulness for any search task.
Brave Synthesizer is now available to all Brave Browser users on desktop and mobile devices and on the Brave web search page. If users do not wish to use the AI search assistant, they can disable it in their browser settings.
Source: Brave Blog