Meta reportedly developing a search engine to power its AI chatbot

Meta is reportedly creating its own search engine to reduce its need for Google and Microsoft.

The tool, which has been in development for eight months, would work with Meta’s AI chatbot, giving it an alternative to Google Search and Bing.

This move follows Meta’s experience with Apple’s App Tracking Transparency, a privacy feature introduced in 2021 that Meta says cost them over $10 billion in ad revenue. Now, CEO Mark Zuckerberg is pushing for Meta to be more independent in case Google or Microsoft limits their access to search tools.

Meta’s new web crawler, introduced this summer, could be part of the search engine project.

Meanwhile, Meta’s AI services are growing quickly, with over 185 million weekly users and 400 million monthly users, positioning the company to rely less on other tech giants in the future.