Yahoo enters AI search engine race with Scout to take on ChatGPT

Yahoo has launched Yahoo Scout, a new free AI search engine, as part of its efforts to reinvent search and strengthen its place in the tech industry. The beta launch takes place today and targets Yahoo’s global user base, offering AI-powered summaries, search results and content insights.

Led by Yahoo Chief Executive Officer Jim Lanzone, it says that the company is entering a new phase after years of internal restructuring.

Yahoo Shout features

Despite no longer dominating tech headlines, Yahoo still has a significant following of 700 million users around the world. Yahoo Scout is a tool meant to ensure that the users remain within the Yahoo bubble, with the app being available as a separate entity as well as a feature within Yahoo Mail, Finance, and Sports.

The AI search engine also has the capability of giving a summary of how a business is performing, explaining the news, and providing an analysis of a sports match, as well as analysing the sentiment of the user in the comments.

Yahoo Scout is a search engine that utilises the knowledge graph of Yahoo, Anthropic’s Claude, and Bing’s web API. According to Yahoo’s Senior Vice President and General Manager Eric Feng, the search engine utilises decades of user data and content to provide more relevant results. However, the user data is not utilised for training the AI model.

The search engine also prioritises linking out to publishers. This is a positive move for the media industry, considering the impact of AI search tools on the industry. The ads are integrated into the search results from the very beginning, along with shopping results from Yahoo’s Vetted.

Personalisation is another important feature of the Yahoo Scout search engine. According to Yahoo’s Chief Executive Officer, Jim Lanzone, subscription options are also on the roadmap for the future, considering the paid options offered by Yahoo.