Since its launch in 1998, Google has changed the way we search for information on the internet. There are other players like Bing, DuckDuckGo and Yahoo, but Google accounts for the majority of online searches on the internet. However, in the last few years, Google’s search result quality has dipped, with the tech giant now showing advertisements and other irrelevant search results on top.
This is where AI-powered search engines can come in handy. Compared to traditional search engines like Google, which show you a list of URLs you can click on to get more information, they can also summarise multiple search results in a very visually appealing format. Another advantage these AI-powered search engines have over Google is that your search query does not need to be perfect, as ChatGPT and Perplexity are pretty accurate when it comes to identifying typos and grammatical mistakes.
While using AI apps might make sense to some, most of us naturally open our favourite browsers to look for information. If you are planning to ditch Google and switch to ChatGPT or Perplexity to find information online, here’s how to replace Google with AI search engines in your favourite browser’s search bar.
How to add AI search engines to Google Chrome desktop
Unfortunately, most Chromium-based mobile browsers like Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge and Kiwi lack the option to add custom search engines. However, you can do so on the desktop version of these browsers.
1. To add an AI search engine to Chrome on desktop, click on the three-dot menu from the top right of the screen and find and click on ‘Settings’.
2. On the page that appears, go to the section named ‘Search engines’ from the left bar.
3. To the right of the section named ‘Site search’, press the ‘Add’ button
4. Under ‘Name’ and ‘Shortcut’, type the name of the AI search engine you want to use along with a shortcut keyphrase that you can use to search. (For ChatGPT, you can use the ‘@chatgpt’).
5. In the last field, type ‘https://chatgpt.com/?q=%s’ and hit the save button.
6. If you want to use Perplexity, change the name and shortcut field accordingly and in the last field type “https://www.perplexity.ai/?q=%s” and you are good to go.
To search using the newly added AI-powered search engine, type @ followed by the name of the search engine you want to use followed by your search query. For example, if you want to search for information using ChatGPT, type ‘@chatgpt how to make pasta’. The process is fairly similar if you want to add the AI search engines on Microsoft Edge.
Depending on your speed and search query, the AI chatbot may take some time before it generates the relevant results. However, this will help you a lot of time when compared to traditional search engines like Google, where you will have to go through various links to find the information you are looking for.