A
few
minutes
ago,
I
opened
the
new
Arc
Search
app
and
typed,
“What
happened
in
the
Chiefs
game.”
That
game,
the
AFC
Championship,
had
just
wrapped
up.
Normally,
I’d
Google
it,
click
on
a
few
links,
and
read
about
the
game
that
way.
But
in
Arc
Search,
I
typed
the
query
and
tapped
the
“Browse
for
me”
button
instead.
Arc
Search,
the
new
iOS
app
from
The
Browser
Company,
which
has
been
working
on
a
browser
called
Arc
for
the
last
few
years,
went
to
work.
It
scoured
the
web
—
reading
six
pages,
it
told
me,
from
Twitter
to
The
Guardian
to
USA
Today
— and
returned
a
bunch
of
information
a
few
seconds
later.
I
got
the
headline:
Chiefs
win.
I
got
the
final
score,
the
key
play,
a
“notable
event”
that
also
just
said
the
Chiefs
won,
a
note
about
Travis
Kelce
and
Taylor
Swift,
a
bunch
of
related
links,
and
some
more
bullet
points
about
the
game.
Basically,
instead
of
returning
a
bunch
of
search
queries
about
the
Chiefs
game,
Arc
Search
built
me
a
webpage
about
it.
And
somewhere
in
there
is
The
Browser
Company’s
big
idea
about
the
future
of
web
browsers
— that
a
browser,
a
search
engine,
an
AI
chatbot,
and
a
website
aren’t
different
things.
They’re
all
just
parts
of
an
internet
information
finder,
and
they
might
as
well
exist
inside
the
same
app.
Arc
Search
is
part
of
a
bigger
shift
for
the
Arc
browser,
too.
The
company’s
mobile
app
has
until
now
been
mostly
a
companion
app
to
the
desktop,
a
way
to
access
your
open
tabs
and
not
much
else.
With
Arc
starting
to
roll
out
to
Windows
users,
The
Browser
Company
is
also
getting
ready
to
roll
out
its
own
cross-platform
syncing
system,
called
Arc
Anywhere,
and
to
bring
some
of
these
AI-powered
features
to
Arc
on
other
platforms.
(Eventually,
CEO
Josh
Miller
says,
Arc
Search
will
just
be
called
Arc
and
will
be
the
company’s
only
mobile
app.)
The
“Browse
for
me”
feature
isn’t
perfect,
but
it’s
pretty
impressive.
When
I
search
“What’s
Pete
Davidson
up
to,”
for
instance,
it
gives
me
some
broad-strokes
information
about
his
recent
film
and
breakup
news
(very
useful!),
links
to
his
Wikipedia
page,
and
a
couple
of
news
sites’
tag
pages
for
Pete
Davidson
(meh),
and
then
a
bunch
of
information
about
his
recent
personal
and
professional
goings-on.
Like
many
AI
tools,
Arc
Search
isn’t
great
at
citing
its
source,
so
I
can’t
completely
trust
that
Davidson
and
Chase
Sui
Wonders
actually
broke
up,
but
there
is
a
“Dive
Deeper”
section
at
the
bottom
with
a
bunch
of
links.
Most
of
those
links
are
the
same
generic
stuff,
like
a
“Pete
Davidson’s
net
worth”
webpage
that
I’m
confident
isn’t
right,
but
there’s
good
stuff
here
too.
The
system
has
improved
a
lot
even
in
the
time
I’ve
been
testing
the
app,
and
Miller
says
there’s
plenty
more
room
for
Arc
Search
to
get
smarter.
(The
underlying
AI
models
come
from
a
mix
of
OpenAI
and
others.)
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.
I
like
Arc
Search
as
a
browser,
too
—
it’s
simple
and
fast
and
always
opens
to
an
empty
search
box,
which
feels
right
on
mobile.
But
it
does
put
The
Browser
Company
in
the
middle
of
a
lot
of
complicated
AI
discussions.
Will
the
company
work
with
the
publishers
whose
information
it’s
using
to
populate
these
answers?
How
will
Arc’s
AI
cite
its
sources?
How
personalized
should
these
things
be?
How
personalized
can
they
be?
A
search
like
this
is
bound
to
be
expensive;
will
Arc
Search
be
a
paid
product
over
time?
The
company
hasn’t
shared
much
about
its
plans
on
these
fronts
yet,
but
there
are
a
lot
of
questions
to
be
answered.
But
from
a
pure
product
perspective,
this
feels
closer
to
the
way
AI
search
should
work
than
anything
I’ve
tried.
Products
like
Copilot
and
Perplexity.AI
are
cool,
but
they’re
fundamentally
just
chatbots
with
web
access.
Arc
Search
imagines
something
else
entirely:
an
AI
that
explores
websites
by
building
you
a
new
one
every
time
you
ask.
Next
week,
millions
of
people
will
start
typing
the
internet’s
favorite
phrase:
“What
time
does
the
Super
Bowl
start.”
I
already
know,
because
I
clicked
“Browse
for
me,”
and
I
also
now
know
where
the
game
is,
how
to
watch
it,
and
to
be
sure
and
clear
my
schedule
for
Usher
at
halftime.
That’s
a
pretty
good
search
result.
Original author: David Pierce
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