The trend of searching using AI tools like Perplexity is becoming more and more popular. Photo: Reuters . |
Users are looking for faster, more direct, and more personalized information-search experiences. Fifty-five percent of respondents to a survey conducted by The Information late last year said they were using chatbots instead of traditional search engines for everyday queries.
Taking advantage of this trend, major players in the AI industry are racing to upgrade their chatbots’ real-time information retrieval capabilities. With different capabilities, each tool will have its own strengths in retrieving information from the Internet.
What makes a powerful search engine?
First, users can save time searching for information. Instead of having to click through to each web page, chatbots aggregate content and rewrite it into short text that they predict will best match the question.
More than just matching words, chatbots must actually understand the context of the query and user information to choose the best content, according to Fabrice Canel, Program Director at Bing.
In addition, the answer must also be extracted from a reputable site, and not limited to text, video, or podcast sources. In short, as long as users do not have to click on many links, turn off ads, or spend a lot of time verifying information, it proves that the search function is really useful.
The best AI search engine today
Perplexity
The tool is most loved by reputable sites such as WSJ , Zapier or Ahrefs. Perplexity excels with the ability to search from many sources from videos, blogs to in-depth articles in a short time, and presents content in easy-to-understand bullet points.
If you’re doing research or a thesis, Perplexity can help with context understanding, allowing you to ask questions in rapid succession and organizing conversations into groups for easy archiving. For example, if you’re asking about Elon Musk, you won’t need to repeat his name, just say “him” in the next question.
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With its easy-to-use interface and ability to pull from multiple sources, Perplexity is excelling in the search field. Photo: VoiceFlow. |
Perplexity offers a comprehensive AI search experience, but the chatbot is still not sensitive to current events, such as game scores. Perplexity’s parent company has been sued for using news content without paying for it.
Despite pulling information from multiple sources, Perplexity has been questioned for its accuracy, and has even been criticized for dishonesty and plagiarism. Users will need to verify important details if they want to cite them.
Google AI Overview
AI Overview is a feature integrated directly into Google's search page, providing a combination of traditional search and artificial intelligence on the same platform. When users ask a question, the chatbot will attach summaries of a few related resources at the top of the displayed list, increasing the convenience of the experience.
Ryan Law, Marketing Director at Ahrefs, rated this feature as quite useful, solving the core problem. In addition, AI Overview helps to open up ideas quite well with the ability to suggest diverse content such as images, links, videos.
With a huge source of data from e-commerce websites, user reviews, Google Shopping, Maps, YouTube, Ads... Google AI Overview performs outstandingly in commercial and transactional queries. You can use the tool to evaluate and compare many products to make the optimal choice.
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Google AI Overview is strong in results leading to commercial sites. Photo: Search Engine Land. |
One point that is both a limitation and brings accurate results is that the tool only displays when it has verified its information. In addition, the biggest drawback is that users cannot ask follow-up questions or communicate with the chatbot to develop further ideas.
ChatGPT
In contrast to Google AI Overview, OpenAI’s ChatGPT has an impressive memory, suitable for open-ended questions, meeting the need to mine more from existing ideas. The ability to remember previous conversations, as well as user preferences and characteristics, helps the chatbot quickly understand the problem context.
The results that ChatGPT provides are quite updated and accurate in real time, such as gold prices, weather, and markets. Each line of text is accompanied by a transparent source, allowing users to check the reliability of the information.
However, ChatGPT's in-depth response capabilities also have the opposite effect when users ask simple or commercial questions. The software will give explanations that are somewhat too detailed, but not as practically applicable as Google AI Overview.
Grok
If you’re looking for a more up-to-date, social form of information, consider Grok, Elon Musk’s AI. The biggest plus is that the chatbot can access and analyze data directly from the X platform, allowing you to update and respond to trends, current events, and popular discussions.
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Two powerful features of chatbots. Photo: Grok AI. |
DeepSearch and DeeperSearch provide deeper analysis to help users understand complex topics. The reasoning process is also transparent through Think Mode, which allows you to test how the AI reaches its conclusions.
Because it uses social media sources, Grok’s results are sometimes biased or lacking in context. The software only integrates with X, and there is no mobile app version, so it has not reached the general public, especially in the learning or working environment.
Claude
Although it was only launched in March 2025, Claude’s search feature developed by Anthropic has received many compliments, becoming a formidable competitor to ChatGPT or Perplexity. The chatbot developer promises to provide solutions for busy people in minutes.
The feature, implemented in Claude 3.7 Sonnet, uses a "Hybrid Reasoning" model that combines learned knowledge with real-time data from the web to provide more accurate and timely feedback.
Anthropic has long been known for its research on thinking and the problem of AI hallucinations. Therefore, Claude also prioritizes authentic and trustworthy sources of information, and provides direct quotes for users to easily verify. The company also keeps business information confidential when using AI.
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Claude Search interface. Photo: Writingmate. |
Other features such as real-time Internet access and global expansion are still in beta. Currently, the feature is only available in the paid version, and is being expanded globally. Claude queries are not as effective as other chatbots.
However, the security and illusion of AI are becoming increasingly serious, paving the way for tools that emphasize safety and transparency in their results. Claude thus brings great potential to the AI search market.
Source: https://znews.vn/nam-2025-roi-dung-tim-kiem-bang-google-nua-post1551503.html
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