Zuckerberg partners with Reuters to let users get answers about news and events in real time.

Meta Platforms has been developing for some time an artificial intelligence-enhanced web crawler of its own in a move to reduce its reliance on Alphabet’s Google and Microsoft’s Bing search engines for products like Facebook, WhatsUp and Instagram.

The Informant learned that Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg wants to use the new search engine to provide Meta AI with direct answers and real-time updates about news and current events, eliminating the need for external sources and keeping users within Meta services.

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For this purpose, Mark Zuckerberg has inked an agreement with Reuters, one of the most reliable sources of information on regional and global affairs, to use the agency’s content for the future AI-based web crawler.

Meta’s effort comes amid a tough competition between tech sharks like Google, Microsoft, and OpenAI. Google, for example, is integrating its powerful Gemini AI model into core services like Google Search to enhance conversational interactions, while OpenAI leverages Microsoft’s Bing to deliver web-based answers for ChatGPT users.

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Meta's strategy indicates a push toward self-sufficiency, enabling its AI chatbot to meet user needs independently of other technologies, both on desktop and mobile devices.

If successful, Meta’s AI search engine could represent a significant competitor in the AI search domain, where emerging players like Perplexity and Arc Search are already distinguishing themselves by summarizing search results and linking to original sources.

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OpenAI’s anticipated SearchGPT is rumored to launch by the end of this year, and now there’s speculation Meta could debut its alternative AI search engine as early as 2025.

According to StatCounter, a global statistical metering service, as of September 2024, Google controlled 90% of the online search market. Bing accounted for almost 4%, Russia’s Yandex for 2.35%, Yahoo 1.35%, and China’s Baidu less than 1%.

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