AI search API
An AI search API runs a web search and returns sources, passages or an answer that a model can use.
What it means
An AI search API combines web search with page reading and returns something an agent can use directly. Depending on the product, that might be ranked passages, a list of sources with extracted text, or a short answer with citations. Exa, Parallel, Tavily, Brave Search API and Hyperresearch Answers all sit in this group, although they differ in how much work they do before they return results.
The main decision is how much work the API does for you. Some return raw excerpts and leave the reasoning to your model. Others return a finished answer with quotes that you can check against the source page. Price usually follows that choice, so a low per-request search price can cost more in tokens once reading and reasoning steps are added. Measure the full cost of one answer, not only the search call.
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Cite this entry
https://apisearchengine.com/glossary/ai-search-api/