Brave launches AI search tool that checks facts automatically

Brave, the company that makes a privacy-focused web browser, launched a new tool called AI Grounding on August 5, 2025. This tool helps artificial intelligence systems give better, more accurate answers by connecting them to real websites and checking facts automatically.

The service works with Brave's search engine, which already handles over 15 million searches every day. When someone asks an AI chatbot a question, AI Grounding searches the internet for current information and uses that to help the AI give a better answer.

What makes this different

Most AI chatbots can only use information they learned during training, which might be months or years old. AI Grounding solves this problem by letting AI systems search for fresh information from websites in real-time. This means the AI can answer questions about recent events or check current facts.

Brave tested their system using a standard test called SimpleQA, which asks AI systems 4,332 factual questions about history, science, technology, art, and entertainment. AI Grounding scored 94.1% on this test, which means it got almost all the answers right. This performance puts Brave ahead of most other similar services.

The company offers two ways their system can work. The fast version does one internet search and gives an answer in about 4.5 seconds. The thorough version does multiple searches and takes longer - about 74 seconds on average - but gives more complete answers. The thorough version scored even higher on accuracy tests.

How it works for businesses

Companies can use AI Grounding through Brave's API (a way for different computer programs to talk to each other). Brave offers three pricing plans: a free version for small projects, and paid versions that cost $4 for every 1,000 searches plus $5 for every million words the AI processes.

This timing is important because Microsoft shut down their Bing search tools for developers in August 2025. Before this, companies could choose between Google, Microsoft's Bing, or Brave for search features in their apps. Now Brave is one of the few independent options left, making it more valuable for businesses that don't want to depend only on Google.

Brave's search engine is already the third-largest independent search system in the world. It has indexed over 30 billion web pages and handles more than 1.5 billion searches per month. The company says over 4,000 developers sign up to use their search tools every week.

Why accuracy matters

When AI systems make up information or give wrong answers, experts call this "hallucination." This is a big problem for businesses using AI to help customers or make important decisions. AI Grounding helps fix this by always checking information against real websites before giving answers.

The system includes links to the websites it used, so people can verify the information themselves. This transparency helps build trust, especially for businesses that need reliable information for customer service or decision-making.

Brave updated their system on September 1, 2025, making it even more accurate. The fast version improved from 89.8% to 92.1% accuracy, while the thorough version maintained its high performance but became faster and cheaper to run.

Competition in the market

Brave compared their service to competitors like Perplexity, another company that helps AI systems search the internet. Brave's fast version scored 92.1% accuracy compared to Perplexity's 85.5%. In thorough searching, Brave scored 94.1% compared to Perplexity's 93.9%.

The company emphasizes that they built their own search system instead of relying on Google or Microsoft. This independence matters because if Google or Microsoft change their rules or prices, it won't affect Brave's customers. Many other companies that offer search services actually just repackage results from Google or Microsoft, making them vulnerable to changes.

Technical details explained simply

Brave's system can work with most popular AI models that companies use today. It supports multiple programming languages, making it easy for developers to add search features to their applications. The system can return between 5 and 50 search results per query, depending on what the developer needs.

When testing their system, Brave found that about half of all questions could be answered with just one internet search. More complex questions needed an average of 7 searches and looked at about 210 different web pages to find the right answer.

The company uses both computer programs and human reviewers to check the quality of their results. Human reviewers found that in 167 cases, the computer testing system had marked correct answers as wrong, showing that human oversight remains important even with advanced AI.

Real-world applications

Businesses can use AI Grounding for many different purposes. Customer service chatbots can get current information about products or policies. Market research tools can find the latest industry trends. News applications can check facts and find recent information about events.

The system works particularly well for questions that need current information, like "What's the weather today?" or "Who won yesterday's game?" It can also handle complex research tasks that require looking at multiple sources and comparing information.

Microsoft's decision to end their search API service created new opportunities for independent services like Brave. Companies that previously used Microsoft's tools now need alternatives, and Brave positioned itself as the main independent option.

Looking ahead

AI Grounding represents a growing trend where AI systems need access to current information rather than just their training data. As more businesses rely on AI for customer service, research, and decision-making, having access to accurate, up-to-date information becomes crucial.

Brave's focus on independence and privacy appeals to companies concerned about relying too heavily on Google or Microsoft. The service provides an alternative that gives businesses more control over their search capabilities while maintaining high performance standards.

The company continues to improve the system, with the September update showing significant gains in both speed and accuracy. As more developers adopt the service, Brave expects to handle even larger volumes of searches while maintaining quality standards.

Timeline:

• July 9, 2021 - Brave launches independent search engine with own index, competing with Google and Microsoft
• April 17, 2024 - Brave Search adds AI-powered answer feature that gives direct answers instead of just links
• May 12, 2025 - Microsoft announces they will shut down Bing search tools for developers in August
• August 5, 2025 - Brave announces AI Grounding service with 94.1% accuracy score on standard tests
• August 11, 2025 - Microsoft shuts down Bing search tools, making Brave a key independent alternative
• September 1, 2025 - Brave releases improved version with better accuracy and faster responses
• February 1, 2025 - Microsoft launches their own search tool for AI systems using Bing

PPC Land explains

AI Grounding AI Grounding is the process of connecting artificial intelligence systems to real, verified information sources like websites and databases. Instead of relying only on information the AI learned during training, grounding allows AI to search for current facts and data when answering questions. This helps prevent the AI from making up information or giving outdated answers, making it much more reliable for business use.

API (Application Programming Interface) An API is like a messenger that allows different computer programs to talk to each other and share information. When a company wants to add search features to their app or website, they use Brave's API to connect their system to Brave's search engine. It's similar to how a waiter takes your order to the kitchen - the API takes requests from one program and delivers them to another program that can fulfill them.

SimpleQA Benchmark SimpleQA is a standardized test created by OpenAI to measure how accurately AI systems can answer factual questions. It contains 4,332 questions covering topics like history, science, and current events, with clear right and wrong answers. Companies use this test to compare how well their AI systems perform against competitors, similar to how students take standardized tests to measure their knowledge.

F1-Score The F1-score is a way to measure how accurate an AI system is at answering questions correctly. It's expressed as a percentage, with 100% being perfect accuracy. Brave's 94.1% F1-score means their system got more than 94 out of every 100 questions right on the SimpleQA test, which is considered excellent performance in the AI industry.

Search Index A search index is like a massive library catalog that contains information about billions of web pages across the internet. When you search for something, the search engine looks through its index to find relevant pages instead of searching the entire internet in real-time. Brave has built their own index with over 30 billion web pages, making them independent from Google and Microsoft's indexes.

Hallucination In AI terms, hallucination happens when an artificial intelligence system makes up information or gives confident answers that are completely wrong. This occurs because AI systems sometimes generate responses that sound believable but aren't based on actual facts. AI Grounding helps prevent hallucination by always checking information against real sources before providing answers.

Microsoft Bing Bing is Microsoft's search engine that competes with Google, though it has a much smaller market share. Until August 2025, Microsoft offered tools that allowed other companies to use Bing's search capabilities in their own applications. When Microsoft shut down these tools, it created a gap in the market that services like Brave's AI Grounding now fill.

Real-time Data Real-time data refers to information that is current and up-to-date, often changing by the minute or hour. This includes things like stock prices, weather conditions, news events, and sports scores. Traditional AI systems can't access real-time data because they only know information from their training period, but AI Grounding can search for and use current information when answering questions.

Independent Search Engine An independent search engine is one that builds and maintains its own database of web pages rather than relying on results from Google or Microsoft. Brave is one of only three major independent search engines globally, alongside Google and Microsoft. This independence means Brave can't be shut down or controlled by competitors, giving businesses more choice and security.

Multi-search vs Single-search These terms describe two different approaches to finding information. Single-search means the system does one internet search and uses those results to answer a question - it's faster but may miss some information. Multi-search means the system does several related searches, analyzes all the results, and then provides a more comprehensive answer - it takes longer but is usually more accurate and complete.

Summary

Who: Brave Software, the company behind the privacy-focused Brave web browser used by 94 million people monthly, created this service for businesses and developers building AI applications.

What: AI Grounding is a tool that helps AI chatbots and systems give more accurate answers by automatically searching the internet for current information and checking facts against real websites, scoring 94.1% on accuracy tests.

When: Launched August 5, 2025, with major improvements released September 1, 2025, following Microsoft's announcement in May 2025 that they would shut down competing services.

Where: Available worldwide through Brave's API system, with different pricing plans for small projects and large businesses, supporting multiple programming languages and development tools.

Why: Businesses need AI systems that can access current information and give accurate answers, especially after Microsoft eliminated their search tools for developers, creating demand for independent alternatives that don't rely on Google or Microsoft.