The year 1998 was a pivotal one in the history of technology: Apple's introduction of the iMac helped set the company back on the path to success after it nearly went bankrupt earlier in the decade; Google was founded by two Stanford students, Larry Page and Sergey Brin; and Microsoft introduced Windows 98, an improved version of its popular computer operating system. That May, Microsoft also became the target of a historic antitrust lawsuit lodged by the Department of Justice and twenty states, accusing it of anticompetitive behavior in two domains: attempting to maintain its monopoly in computer operating systems and trying to monopolize a new market, that of Internet browsers. At the time, residential Wi-Fi connectivity was rapidly expanding across America, and, in the quaintly titled "browser wars," Netscape Navigator, a popular browser released by Mosaic Communications Corporation in 1994, fought Microsoft's Internet Explorer for the growing class of Web-connected consumers. Microsoft, the D.O.J. alleged, had attempted to crush Netscape by making deals with Internet-service providers that prioritized Explorer access at Netscape users' expense. The trial began that fall, and included seventy-six days of testimony that took place over more than eight months, during which a government witness alleged that a Microsoft executive had pledged to "cut off Netscape's air supply" (which a Microsoft attorney denied).

In an unassuming office on a quiet, mostly residential street in Mountain View, California -- located eight minutes from Google's sprawling headquarters -- a couple of ex-Googlers and their team of 50 are trying to build a search engine they hope will someday rival their former employer's. The company, Neeva, was started in 2020 by Sridhar Ramaswamy, who ran Google's $162 billion advertising arm before stepping down in 2018, and Vivek Raghunathan, a former Google vice president who worked on monetizing YouTube and other parts of the company. For a few years, the startup, which has raised over $77 million from some of Silicon Valley's top investors, focused on differentiating itself from Google by shunning invasive advertising and allowing power users to pay for extra features. Then, around the end of last year, the team at Neeva watched as a chatbot called ChatGPT created by the San Francisco–based startup OpenAI went viral. ChatGPT's ability to divine answers to nearly every question with an eerily humanlike sentience made it an instant hit, unleashing a modern AI wave. Suddenly, people around the world were talking about replacing Google search with ChatGPT. After all, if a chatbot could instantly answer any question for you, why would you need a search engine that simply spat out a bunch of links for you to trawl through?

If you're concerned about publishers and content creators getting their due in the new age of AI-powered chat, you might want to adopt Neeva, a small search engine that emphasizes pushing you to its sources as much as giving you the answer. Neeva, founded by Sridhar Ramaswamy (ex-senior vice president of ads at Google), and Vivek Raghunathan, (ex-vice president of monetization at YouTube), is one of the small number of search engines that are either built around AI-powered technology or have added it. While the big three include ChatGPT, Microsoft Bing, and eventually Google Bard, both You.com as well as Neeva have a chance to try and grab some attention as AI-powered search begins to grow. However, Neeva can't really be considered an AI-powered chatbot, at least not yet. Think of it as AI-powered search, or search plus a bit of AI layered on top.

In its early weeks, ChatGPT, the wildly popular artificial intelligence tool from OpenAI, has offered up a potential new model for online search. The chatbot responds to questions about topics such as political science and computer programming with detailed explanations, and its question-and-answer format means users can drill down until they fully understand. Users doing similar research on Google must typically scan search results and peruse various websites until they arrive at their own conclusions. ChatGPT, by contrast, delivers a decisive (or at least decisive-sounding) answer in seconds. Alphabet Inc.'s Google has been essentially untouchable in search, but a handful of companies, some founded by former Googlers, think that's about to change.

In November 2017, Sridhar Ramaswamy--the head of Google's $95 billion advertising arm--left the company after a scandal concerning advertisements for major corporations found on YouTube videos that put children in questionable situations. Ramaswamy told The New York Times that shortly after that incident, he decided that he needed to do something different in his life--because "an ad-supported model had limitations." This story originally appeared on Ars Technica, a trusted source for technology news, tech policy analysis, reviews, and more. Ars is owned by WIRED's parent company, Condé Nast. Ramaswamy's startup company, Neeva, is that "something different"--and though it, too, is a search engine, it seeks to sidestep some of Google's problems by avoiding the ads altogether. Ramaswamy says that the new engine won't show ads and won't collect or profit from user data--instead, it will charge its users a subscription fee.