Why You Care
Ever wish your search engine didn’t just give you links, but actual, comprehensive answers? What if you could ask a question and get a detailed report, complete with videos and follow-up options? Brave is making this a reality for you with its new ‘Ask Brave’ feature. This update could significantly change how you find information online, making your searches much more efficient.
What Actually Happened
Brave, known for its privacy-focused browser and search engine, has rolled out a new AI-powered search feature called ‘Ask Brave.’ This new capability provides detailed answers to your queries, moving beyond simple summaries. According to the announcement, ‘Ask Brave’ will coexist with its existing AI Answers feature. That older feature, introduced last year, offers summarized responses to search queries. The company reports that users are currently getting more than 15 million AI answers every day from the previous iteration. ‘Ask Brave’ automatically recognizes your query type, so you don’t need a special mode to use it. You can initiate a search by tapping the ‘ask’ button next to the Brave search box. What’s more, you can convert a regular search into an AI search by selecting the ‘Ask’ tab on the results page. If Brave Search is your default, appending ‘?’ to a query also triggers an ‘Ask Brave’ search, as detailed in the blog post.
Why This Matters to You
This new ‘Ask Brave’ feature is designed to give you more than just quick facts. Imagine you’re planning a trip. Instead of sifting through multiple travel blogs, you could ask ‘Ask Brave’ for a detailed itinerary for a week in Tokyo. The response might include recommended attractions, local dining spots, and even embedded videos or relevant news articles. This saves you significant time and effort.
Josep M. Pujol, Brave’s chief of search, highlighted the key distinction. He stated, “While AI Answers give our users quick summaries, Ask Brave provides longer answers, follow-ups, and a chat mode enhanced with Deep Research, and most importantly, contextually relevant enrichments such as videos, news articles, products, businesses, shopping, and more — in the right place, at the right time.” This means your answers are not just text; they are rich, multimedia reports. How much time could this save you on your daily information gathering?
Here’s a look at what ‘Ask Brave’ offers:
| Feature | Description |
| Detailed Answers | Provides comprehensive, report-like responses to complex queries. |
| Follow-Up Chat | Allows users to ask subsequent questions or refine initial answers. |
| Rich Media | Integrates videos, news articles, products, and shopping links directly. |
| Deep Research | Enhances answers with more in-depth, contextually relevant information. |
This format is similar to what you might find with AI chatbots like ChatGPT or Perplexity, according to the announcement. Once you receive an answer, you can ask the AI chatbot to reformat it or pose follow-up questions. This interactive element makes the search experience much more dynamic for you.
The Surprising Finding
Here’s an interesting twist: Brave anticipates ‘Ask Brave’ will generate millions more daily AI-powered answers. This might seem obvious, but it challenges the assumption that users only want quick, summarized AI responses. Instead, it suggests a significant demand for longer, more detailed AI-generated content directly within search results. Pujol noted, “We anticipate that Ask Brave will generate millions more daily AI-powered answers with this combination of search and chat, and look forward to deploying more useful AI-powered search tools for our users.” This indicates a strong belief that users are ready for, and actively seeking, more in-depth AI assistance for their searches. It shows that the future of search isn’t just about speed, but also about comprehensive understanding and rich context.
What Happens Next
Brave is clearly investing heavily in its AI-powered search capabilities. The company is using its own large language models (LLMs) to power these new features. This self-reliance ensures greater control over data and privacy, a core Brave value. We can expect to see further enhancements to ‘Ask Brave’ in the coming months, possibly integrating even more interactive elements. For example, imagine asking for a recipe and getting a step-by-step video tutorial embedded directly in your search result. For content creators, this means a new way for your work to be discovered. Your videos or articles could be directly surfaced in detailed AI answers. Therefore, understanding how these AI search tools rank and present information will become increasingly important for you. The industry implication is a continued shift towards conversational and context-rich search experiences, moving away from simple keyword matching.