Brave launches Ask Brave AI chat search with privacy and multimedia answers

Brave has introduced Ask Brave, an AI-powered chat-style search feature available directly from the Brave Search homepage on all browsers. Users can access it by clicking the Ask button next to the search box, switching to the Ask tab in results, or adding “??” to a query when Brave Search is set as the default engine. No special mode is required, as the feature is enabled by default.

Ask Brave complements the existing AI Answers tool, but instead of short summaries, it provides longer, report-style outputs, pretty similar to what you can get from other AI assistants like Perplexity. These responses are grounded with Brave Search API and enhanced by Deep Research for complex queries, combining accuracy with contextual elements such as images, videos, and related news. Users can also ask follow-up questions or request different answer formats.

Unlike similar solutions from other AI companies, the company emphasizes that Ask Brave prioritizes privacy, with chats encrypted, deleted after 24 hours of inactivity, and not linked to IP addresses. It also highlights contextual enrichments and interactive responses.