This 'Arc Search' Blends AI With Search Engine And Web Browser To Create One Experience

An all-in-one solution to meet all the demands. Literally, but true.

In the era where pretty much everyone can have access to the internet, opening up a web browser is probably the first anyone would do when attempting to "surf" the web. And if they wish to look for something, querying a search engine is the most obvious thing to do.

And in a world where AI has taken over on pretty much all major tech products, The Browser Company is yet another company that wishes to piggyback on the trend.

Known for its Arc browser, the company introduces what it calls the 'Arc Search'.

This entity blends all the above into one unique product, in order to create something new and different.

Whereas Arc Browser is designed to be customizable, and allows users to cosmetically change how they see specific websites, Arc Search "brings everything you are searching for, to you -- quickly and without distractions."

"The world moves stirringly fast," The Browser Company said in a blog post.

With new products and apps launched every single week, and that fresh takes and new ideas pop up on people's daily feed, keeping up is already a challenge.

Arc Search aims to simplify these things.

Arc Search is simple and pretty much straightforward. Opening the app will result in a single field for search.

Nothing more, nothing less, besides the gradient background, and an interactive Arc logo.

But that search field packs more than a punch.

This is because it's weaving AI into surfing the web, and a search engine.

Putting the three functionalities together, The Browser Company is deriving from others, but remain in line with its goal of creating an "operating system for the web", by integrating standard browsing with Arc's own applications.

Most notably, Arc Search boasts what it calls the 'Browse for Me' feature, which essentially fires up an AI that browses the web, look for the necessary information to respond to the query, and put them all together into a single list that summarizes pretty much everything to explain that query.

What makes it different than traditional search engines is that, Arc Search acts like a chatbot, in which it responds to a user query using its own way through understanding of context, without having to really depend on keywords.

Unlike Microsoft Copilot, for example, Arc Search is more than just a chatbot with web access.

Arc Search imagines something else entirely: AI that explores websites by populating a new search results every time it is asked.

Initially, the Browse for Me feature is far from perfect, and is quite gimmicky.

But because it's an AI, which was developed using a mix of OpenAI's ChatGPT and others, Browse for Me is still learning.

And because of that, the system should improve as time passes.

According to Josh Miller, co-founder and CEO of The Browser Company, there’s plenty more room for Arc Search to get smarter.

Arc has been deeply invested in AI for a while, and some of its Arc Max features have been a hit with users. As the whole industry of generative AI tools improves, so will Arc.

Arc Search is part of a bigger shift for the Arc browser, because before this, it was more like a companion app to the desktop. But this Browse for Me feature opens up a few questions that need to be answered.

For example, how does it populate its answers, and how does it benefits publishers of the content? How is the Arc's AI cite sources, and how personalized the results are?

And because training AI is expensive, The Browser Company has yet to explain its business model.