Will You.com’s AI-Based Multimodal Chat Search Supersede Google and Microsoft?

ChatGPT whipped up a storm ever since its public launch in November 2022. While some are contemplating if Generative AI and ChatGPT are those glorious tools that companies desperately need today, another section is trying to fathom the dangers of this most-talked-about technology. Either way, the fact remains, generative AI is proving to be a game-changer in the coming years.

So much so that biggies like Microsoft and Google reinvent their techniques to stay at the top. To ace the ‘search’ game, Microsoft launched an all-new AI-powered Microsoft Bing and Edge followed by Sunder Pichai’s Bard.

Another company that is following up on these colossal announcements is You.com’s coveted AI-Based Multimodal chat search. The company’s founder, Richard Socher categorically maintains that his company first built the Generative AI-based search engine way before the tech giants made the formal announcements.

In this article, we have put together excerpts from Richard’s interview with TechCrunch.

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What Is A Multimodal?

For those who are unfamiliar with this term, we are breaking it down into simpler terms. Multimodal is a new AI approach that includes different kinds of data such as text, image, speech, and numerical data combined with several intelligence processing algorithms.

One of the most common features of a multimodal is to generate images from text and OpenAI’s DALL-E is a popular multimodal example. A smart assistant can be another application of a multimodal AI.

The AI-based Multimodal Search

You.com announced that it was further building on it with a multimodal search, meaning, it can enhance it by adding elements beyond texts to precisely answer questions. Users can type questions such as “the company with the most CRM market share,” whatever the answer is, if the user wishes to further follow it up with a stock price question, the search engine will throw a stock chart instead of a text-based answer.

• Socher explained that this launch indicates a big jump for chat-based search and places You.com ahead of the bigger competitors.
• Socher firmly believes that there’s a better way to address such questions and these modalities can be applied to other queries depending on the context.

He iterated that this was indeed a step in the right direction to enable a large language model to also be multimodal accommodating different modalities like images, text, code, tables, graphs, etc.

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Launched in 2020, You.com strongly felt the need for another search engine, which was exclusively based on AI. Socher wants the new search to be anti-Google.

While speaking to TechCrunch, he stated, “Google is a monolithic, monopolistic search engine that is closed and has ultimately weaponized AI against users for the sake of serving its true purpose: advertising. We are building You.com as a search platform that is open and emphasizes directly serving user needs with You.com apps instead of bombarding people with ads.”

The Technology Behind the Multimodal

At this time, Socher wishes to avoid the technology behind You.com’s search, as he feels that potential competitors who are curious may use the information against him. Maybe sometime in the near future, Socher will reveal the secret ingredient behind the search solution. He fears being copied at this stage of infancy, and so, till the time the search is not default life, or yielding any profits for the startup, he is not too comfortable sharing the technology or the basics of how they are building this stuff.

He says that the company is growing double-digit percentage growth every month, and they have millions of people using the site every day now. They are still considering how to monetize, but it won’t be like Google or Bing.

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In a nutshell

You.com’s multimodal search will definitely be against some tough competition whenever it becomes official, but at this time, what’s clear is that the company’s search is unique and easily stands out, and fulfills most of the things people want from a search engine. You.com’s multimodal will bring in the much-needed new approach to search engine technology.