Anthropic has launched a Web Search API that enhances its Claude AI models, enabling their AI models to search the web for up-to-date information. This move comes as part of the company’s broader effort to make its AI models more useful to developers by providing current, real-world data directly within their applications. Developers can now integrate the API into their platforms, which will give their apps access to the most current information without needing to manage the complexities of web search infrastructure themselves.
The new web search tool works by allowing Claude to reason through a request and determine if it would benefit from the latest data or specialised knowledge. If the model finds that web search is necessary, it will generate a search query, retrieve the results, analyse them, and present a well-formed answer, including citations. This feature is particularly beneficial as it allows developers to build solutions that stay up to date with the rapidly evolving web. Claude is also capable of refining queries and conducting multiple searches, making its results more accurate and context-aware.
Additionally, developers can customise the search behaviour of Claude, including specifying which domains the model is allowed to search. This gives them control over the scope of information being used and helps fine-tune the outputs for their applications. The web search tool is integrated with Anthropic’s Claude 3.7 Sonnet, Claude 3.5 Sonnet, and Claude 3.5 Haiku models, and is available at a pricing rate of $10 per 1,000 searches.
This move is part of Anthropic’s efforts to expand the functionality of its models beyond traditional text-based outputs, which could bring greater value to its user base. Claude’s ability to search the web is also being integrated into Claude Code, an existing tool that helps developers complete coding tasks. With this addition, Claude Code can now access current API documentation, technical articles, and other up-to-date resources, further enhancing its capabilities for developers.
With these new features, Anthropic aims to increase the accessibility and flexibility of its models, allowing developers to create more powerful AI-driven applications that stay current with the latest information. By offering this search functionality, Anthropic is positioning itself as a competitive player in the rapidly growing AI industry.
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