The Search Engine 'You' From Former Salesforce Scientist Wants To Be A Google Competitor

Google Search, the search engine from Google, has been on the top of the food chain long enough.

There has been multiple attempts to dethrone Google, but none succeeded. Even tech companies with tons of resources, like Microsoft and Yahoo! struggled to keep up with Google.

This time, another contender has been introduced by Salesforce's former scientist.

Salesforce is best known for developing software for customer relationship management (CRM) service and also sells a complementary suite of enterprise applications focused on customer service, marketing automation, analytics, and application development.

And here, one of its former scientists is taking on Google Search by launching what he calls 'You'.

You.com is the brainchild of Richard Socher. The former chief scientist at Salesforce who helped built the Einstein AI platform for the company, is taking the challenge to take on Google with his search engine.

“We are building you.com. You can already go to it today. And it’s a trusted search engine. We want to work on having more click trust and less clickbait on the internet,” he said.

He added that in addition to trust, he also wants it to be built on kindness and facts. These are three of the most worthy but difficult goals to achieve in the modern commercialization and money-oriented internet.

According to the scientist, there were issues that led him and other You's co-founders to build a new search engine when Google is already the almighty web conqueror.

For starters, Socher said that there is too much information and nobody can possibly process it all. What’s more, as people find this information, it’s impossible to know whether the information can be trusted and accurate. Socher believes that the issues are giving a major impact to the society, especially since an increasing number of people are relying on the internet for information.

And this is where Socher believes that his background in the field of AI can help create a consumer-focused search engine.

Initially at the moment of introduction, You.com is a general search engine that takes focus on answering queries on complex consumer purchases where users can have several tabs to compare information.

“The biggest impact thing we can do in our lives right now is to build a trusted search engine with AI and natural language processing superpowers to help everyone with the various complex decisions of their lives, starting with complex product purchases, but also being general from the get-go as well,” Socher said.

At the moment of introduction, Socher was light on the details, and preferred to wait until the search engine is complete.

But what is certain at this time, Socher wants to differentiate You from Google by not relying on advertising and what it knows about its users.

Instead, Socher said that from what he learned from Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff is that, he can make a product to earn money but still build trust with the people.

The idea here, per the article and the You's website, involves using advanced natural language processing to surface more relevant search results without having to rely on targeted-data or advertising.

This in theory, allows for a “truly private” yet fully functional search engine.

This approach can make You a contrast to Google, which deals with antitrust issues on a regular basis.

“I think a lot of stuff that Google [has been doing] … with the looming antitrust will be somewhat harder for them to get away with on a continued basis,” he said.

He acknowledges that trust and accuracy could get tricky. This is why You hinted some social sharing elements as Socher and his team plan to build the search engine to also include own custom URL with users' name to facilitate scharing.

At this time, You only opens registration for early access.

According to reports, Socher has already secured funds from investors that include Salesforce CEO Marc Bennioff and venture capitalist Jim Breyer.