In June 2018, the Mountain View, California-based firm debuted a subscription-only search engine in the U.S., eventually adding a free "basic" tier with limits. Neeva AI today has over 600,000 customers, most of whom are on a free plan, and is eager to expand into new regions.

 

Neeva Search Engine has launched its services in the U.K., France, and Germany tomorrow. Due to Google's antitrust issues in e-commerce (Google Shopping), Android, and online advertising, Europe was a good place to start Neeva's expansion.

 

The EU has pushed Google to relax its grip by offering Android users other default search engines during setup. Search is the doorway to the internet for billions of people worldwide. This has mostly failed, but it does make Europe a fertile ground for search startups.

 

TechCrunch interviewed Neeva AI co-founder and CEO Sridhar Ramaswamy in London to discuss his three-year-old company's current state and future market ambitions. Over 15 years, Ramaswamy rose from engineer to senior vice president.

 

He drove Google's $100 billion ads and commerce division. In 2018, he joined Greylock Partners, a prestigious venture capital (VC) firm. Greylock, Sequoia Capital, and other top investors have invested in Neeva twice. Neeva has raised over $80 million since its founding.

Important Features Of Neeva Search Engine

Neeva AI has a native mobile app and a browser plugin for Chrome, Edge, Firefox, and Safari that disables trackers and provides organic search. A news or information website you visit cannot share your data with third parties for profiling or tailored ads.

 

Neeva promotes its ad-free atmosphere. Neeva displays the most relevant results at the top, saving users from scrolling through six or more sponsored results. While few will notice sponsored "inorganic" results, any search tool that preaches privacy has additional trade-offs.

 

Privacy search engines frequently sacrifice utility, which Google provides. Google Search has many value-added capabilities, such as telling you how crowded a pub will be at a certain hour, where the nearest pub is near your present location, and how to get there. 

 

Before we discuss current opening times, addresses, phone numbers, and more for nearly every public place in a city. Apple Maps and interfaces with third-party data providers like Yelp and Tripadvisor help Neeva search engine and others close this gap. 

 

But, the information isn't always current, and navigating isn't possible without giving your location. Neeva AI uses a user's IP address to "infer" their location, although tests showed it was several hundred miles off. It provides more accurate results for current location.

 

Filtering information sources is another benefit. If you don't wish to buy from Amazon, Neeva can deprioritize it in future results. You can also tell Neeva AI to show fewer or more stories from a publisher. It emphasizes Neeva's business model's main benefit. 

More Effective Attributes Of Neeva AI

 

Neeva search engine is targeting consumer spending. Thus Google allows consumers to demote specific corporations in search results. It could contribute to the much-maligned echo chamber effect that has plagued Big Tech in recent years. 

 

It consists of algorithms feeding consumers the same content from the same sources rather than exposing them to "fresh ideas" or content they might not otherwise see. Someone who hates a bunch of political news outlets can minimize their search results. 

 

Ramaswamy emphasizes that its search indexing methods prioritize quality. How Neeva generates findings is another tricky topic. Neeva, like other "alternative" search engines, uses Bing for some web searches, but it planned to switch to its tech stack soon

 

“We built all the personal indexing tech from scratch,” Ramaswamy said. Our tech and Bing split web searches around 50-50. Our huge indexing and search system is serving more results.” Ramaswamy stated that Neeva AI does not send Bing personal data.

 

Neeva search engine also lets signed-in users connect their Google, Office 365, and Dropbox accounts, converting web search into a personalized tool for email, documents, calendars, and more. Premium users can link Slack, GitHub, Confluence, Jira, Box, Notion, and Figma.

A Delicate Balance - Neeva vs Google

 

If someone joined Neeva because of privacy concerns with rival goods, they may not want to use any of the connectors. Neeva AI requests read and write permissions when a user links GitHub to their Neeva account, as required by GitHub's API for downloading data.

 

Google stopped personalizing search results for these reasons. Google used Gmail data to show planned airline and hotel reservations and serve customized adverts. But, the privacy palaver this caused was too much, and Google eventually disconnected these products.

 

It is done to convey the idea that "it doesn't care about your data" and reassure enterprise customers' worry that Google could be reading their emails. It involves balancing privacy, utility, and user control—not everyone wants the same search engine. 

 

Some consumers may be fine with Google scanning their inboxes to find out when their flight leaves, while others may be fine with targeted, ad-supported search results if it means they can use Google's goods for free.

 

Neeva faces the same challenge: "How to create a truly valuable product that people would use and eventually pay for?" and "How to achieve this without advertising or corporate intervention?". As a result, Neeva AI makes a basic product, as un-Google-like as possible.

 

It then lets consumers manually adjust things to their privacy standards. Neeva search engine allows easy web searches without advertising or registration. If users are willing to sacrifice some privacy, they can open a free account to search across third-party personal accounts.

 

The user must manually disable Neeva's 90-day search history. Neeva search engine has this on by default since search history provides real value to users, such as homepage recommendations and auto-filling search phrases. 

 

Search history will be deactivated by default because a product that emphasizes privacy may not need this feature. “Because search is so personal, we're modifying this,” Ramaswamy said. “We thought an explicit opt-in feature was better.”

 

Yet, someone used to Google Search's immediacy and slickness will likely struggle to switch to Neeva or another search engine without seeing the drawbacks. Google succeeds because it builds sticky goods that entice users to stay.

 

Maps are one of the best illustrations of how Google has prospered by taking money from one product, investing it in another, and eliminating competitors. Google uses search ad revenue to fund Maps and eliminate the category.

 

Recognizing Neeva's problem is different from solving it. It all boils down to solving one problem at a time, starting with removing advertisements from the search for people who value it and adding some value-added delights.

Neeva AI Pro-Privacy Search Engine

 

There are many "privacy" search engines, including well-funded incumbents like DuckDuckGo, You.com, and Brave, which recently launched its search engine. These companies all emphasize "privacy." 

 

But they're also trying to establish a search business that doesn't require a lot of adverts and can be based on less intrusive keyword searches. Brave, like Neeva, will soon provide a subscription-based premium service that removes advertisements from search results. 

 

It means advertisements for free plan users. DuckDuckGo relies on keyword-based ads, whereas You.com currently uses affiliate links. Neeva emphasizes that its business model is now focused on getting people to sign up for a premium plan.

 

Neeva Search Engine will not provide any ads or affiliate links. It is also investigating bundling collaborations with like-minded companies like encrypted email service Proton or licensing deals to fuel enterprise application search. 

 

Ramaswamy claimed that localization ensures search quality. Neeva's basic ad-free service is available in Europe at launch, but the premium version will launch in the following weeks at $5 per month. Daily Google searches are estimated at 5.6 billion. 

 

No alternative comes close to that traffic. Google Adwords generates 60% of Google's revenue and provides many businesses with free, organic traffic. It also spawned an industry of Google Adwords optimizers.

Conclusion

We can't decide who will win this Neeva vs Google debate. But we can say that Neeva AI will highly impact the usage of Google and other search engines. Although, it needs a lot of improvements to come into the list of the most popularly used search engines.