Yahoo, which was one of the most popular search portals at the beginning of the century, joins the artificial intelligence race. It does so with Yahoo Scout, a search engine powered by AI with which the company aims to revitalize its positioning in the competitive internet universe and improve the experience of its users.

Yahoo Scout is launched in the United States, where the company has almost 250 million users, in beta version. It will be implemented on both desktop and mobile devices, as well as in Yahoo Search and other products in the portfolio, such as Yahoo Mail, News, Finance or Sports.

Yahoo’s value proposition over rivals lies in the company’s more than 30 years of experience in search, and its deep understanding of how people search and discover online. The company ensures that it combines the best of traditional web search and generative search with AI to offer information and assistance in the most appropriate, effective and personalized way.

However, Yahoo depends on third parties for this movement, since it has not developed its own AI model. It has established a partnership with Anthropic to use Claude as the fundamental AI model for running Yahoo Scout. The company has pointed out that the choice is based on its speed, clarity, judgment and security, qualities that it considers “essential for a consumer response engine where trust and reliability are fundamentalAdditionally, Yahoo Scout also builds on the relationship between Yahoo and Microsoft by leveraging Bing’s core API.

Regarding the user experience, as noted in a statement, Yahoo Scout follows the dynamics of conversational tools. It synthesizes information from the open web, data, and Yahoo content to guide users with clear, concise answers. Yahoo ensures that Scout is presented with an intuitive format that includes multimedia content, content structured in lists and tables, and a transparent list of sources that facilitate understanding and trust regarding the information.

Thus, Yahoo Scout displays a text box and query suggestions. When writing a question, offer an answer that includes a summary paragraph with some highlighted links. Additionally, it includes other search-related sections linked to Yahoo verticals, and the ability to view all sources used in the response. According to The Vergecollects more links than some of its competitors, which demonstrates a commitment to the open web.

Yahoo Scout takes the form of a tab in Yahoo’s search engine, a standalone web app, and a core feature of the new Yahoo Search mobile app. It is powered by Yahoo’s various properties, and takes advantage of the company’s agreements and collaborations with publishers, so it is based on a large amount of high-quality reference material.

“Search is changing dramatically, and our team has been inspired to use decades of experience and exceptional resources to create something exceptionally useful for Yahoo’s hundreds of millions of monthly users.“Jim Lanzone, CEO of Yahoo, said in a statement. “From search to our verticals, Yahoo Scout will help our users achieve their online goals faster and better than ever.”.

By integrating Scout into Yahoo’s various vertical experiences, the company will deliver new capabilities. Among them, the possibility of obtaining email summaries in Yahoo Mail, match analysis in Yahoo Sports, or key conclusions in Yahoo News. It will also facilitate purchasing decisions in Yahoo Shopping, real-time results analysis in Yahoo Finance, as well as comment summaries on articles on the Yahoo home page with “Comment Summaries”.

In addition, Yahoo Scout is launched with an eye on monetization. The answers include, according to The Vergeaffiliate links for shopping results, and an ad unit at the end of some searches. The intention, according to what the company says, would be to use advertising to try to make the product free for users, although it does not rule out the option of developing paid versions.