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Anthropic has introduced a web search capability for its Claude AI assistant, intensifying competition in the rapidly evolving AI search market where tech giants are racing to redefine how users find information online.
The company announced today that developers can now enable Claude to access current web information through its API, allowing the AI assistant to conduct multiple progressive searches to compile comprehensive answers complete with source citations. The move comes as web search undergoes its most significant transformation since Google revolutionized the field more than two decades ago.
“Developers can now augment Claude’s comprehensive knowledge with current, real-world data by enabling the web search tool when making requests to the Messages API,” Anthropic said in its announcement.
The new capability arrives amid signs that traditional search is losing ground to AI-powered alternatives. Apple’s senior vice president of services, Eddy Cue, testified today in Google’s antitrust trial that searches in Safari fell last month for the first time in the browser’s 22-year history. “I’ve lost a lot of sleep thinking about it,” Cue said regarding potential revenue loss from Google’s estimated $20 billion payment to be Safari’s default search engine.
Web search is now available on our API.Developers can augment Claude’s comprehensive knowledge with up-to-date data. pic.twitter.com/pRQf0ZKXUZ— Anthropic (@AnthropicAI) May 7, 2025
AI assistants are eating Google’s lunch: The decline of traditional search engine dominance
The data points to a seismic shift in information discovery patterns. SOCi’s Consumer Behavior Index shows that 19% of consumers already use AI for search, creating the first meaningful challenge to Google’s stranglehold on web information access in decades.
This transformation stems from fundamental differences in how AI assistants process and present information. Unlike traditional search engines that display a list of links requiring users to sift through results, AI assistants synthesize information from multiple sources, delivering concise, contextual answers. This eliminates the cognitive load of evaluating numerous websites and extracts the precise information users seek.
The timing of Anthropic’s announcement is particularly significant. With Safari searches declining for the first time ever — a metric Cue called unprecedented in his testimony — we’re witnessing early indicators of a mass consumer behavior shift. Traditional search engines optimized for advertising revenue are increasingly being bypassed in favor of conversation-based interactions that prioritize information quality over commercial interests.
Under the hood: How Anthropic’s API transforms information retrieval f …