What is AI Search Engine?

An AI search engine is a search platform that uses large language models to synthesise a direct answer to a query, rather than returning a ranked list of links. The user asks a question and receives a generated response that cites sources — fundamentally changing the search interaction from 'choose from these ten links' to 'here is the answer, and here is where it came from.'

The major AI search engines are Perplexity (a dedicated AI search product serving over 100 million queries per month), ChatGPT with browsing (used by tens of millions), Google AI Overviews (appearing on roughly 47% of informational searches), and Microsoft Copilot (powered by Bing's index and OpenAI models). Each has its own crawling, indexing, and citation mechanics.

The key difference from traditional search: in traditional search, success means ranking high so users click your link. In AI search, success means being cited as a source in the generated answer — the user may never visit your site directly. This shift requires a different optimisation strategy (GEO) that focuses on making your content citable rather than just clickable.