Yahoo has officially entered the artificial intelligence (AI) search space with Scout, a new answer engine that focuses on direct responses rather than links, putting it in competition with Google’s AI Mode, Perplexity and ChatGPT’s real-time search tool.
Yahoo Scout is an AI search tool that lets users ask questions in normal language instead of typing keywords. It uses Yahoo’s search experience and data to provide direct answers from the web and Yahoo’s own content.
Yahoo says Scout draws from about 500 million user profiles and a database covering more than one billion topics, helping it understand what users are looking for, personalise results and show relevant information faster.
Scout combines Yahoo’s services to help users check the weather before trips, follow big sports events, track stock changes after earnings, compare products before buying, and verify facts in news stories.
Yahoo Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Jim Lanzone says search habits are changing quickly, and the company plans to use its decades of experience and rare digital assets to help hundreds of millions of users get things done faster online.
Yahoo has partnered with Anthropic, using Claude as Scout’s primary artificial intelligence model, while also relying on Microsoft’s Bing grounding application programming interface to ensure responses are backed by reliable and authoritative web sources.
Scout also provides quick shopping comparisons by summarising expert reviews, while Yahoo Finance gives users real-time company news, analyst ratings, financial data, and earnings updates refreshed every ten minutes.
Yahoo Scout is currently available to users in the United States through Scout.Yahoo.com and the Yahoo Search application on iOS and Android, reaching nearly 250 million users, with broader features and personalisation planned next.
