AI-powered Brave Browser Now Summarizes Search Engine Responses

Microsoft’s Bing and Google’s Bard have started testing the latest kind of AI technology, the big language models that have created such a big wow factor in OpenAI’s ChatGPT. But a much smaller gamer, Brave, added some of those language-processing abilities directly to its web browser on Thursday with a feature that summarizes search results.

The feature, called Summarizer, generates abbreviated explanations for questions in certain search results, combining them with footnote links to its information sources. It’s also designed to offer richer text snippets than you see in more ordinary search results.

It’s another example of an overhaul sweeping the search engine industry. For years, Google has been adding more direct answers to search queries, displaying maps, hours of operation, song lyrics and product recommendations, along with traditional links to other people’s websites. The AI ​​revolution is taking this utility to a new level, for example with Bing’s new AI-boosted search results and sometimes strained chat capabilities.

Large language models like the one that powers ChatGPT are trained to recognize patterns from large swathes of text from across the Internet. They can deliver impressive results, synthesize coherent sentences, and even write essays on an immense variety of topics. But IA LLMs really know nothing and their authoritative tone can be misleading. Brave, which built its own LLM for Summarizer, issued caveats about its use.

“It’s crucial to remind users not to believe everything an AI system produces, the same way you shouldn’t believe everything posted on the web,” Brave said. about Summarizer. “At the risk of stating the obvious, we shouldn’t suspend critical thinking for everything we consume, no matter how impressive the results of AI models may be.”

In my tests, it provided useful results for certain queries – for example, “What is pixel clustering?” and “What do the numbers on the sidewalls of the tires mean?” But he also struggled to consistently handle time elements for topical questions such as “What happened with the Chinese spy balloon?” and “Will the EU approve Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision?”

Brave offers a feedback button for commenting on its Summarizer results, and the feature can be turned off in Settings.

Brave is an unusual example of an independent browser company that has carved out a niche for itself despite the dominance of Google’s Chrome and, to a lesser extent, Apple’s Safari. The company relies on Chromium, the Google-led software project that underpins Chrome, but has built its own search engine and advertising system.

Brave gained a foothold in the browser market by removing ads and website tracking technology by default, replacing its own privacy-focused ad technology as an alternative. About 57 million people now use the browser every month, and the search engine the company built into the browser now handles 22 million queries a day.

Summarizer is now available on desktop and mobile browsers.