Brave could be cooking up something that goes well beyond a normal search bar. The browser’s product manager recently teased what looks like a full AI answer engine running right inside Brave, and honestly, it looks a lot like Perplexity.
The tease came from Keith, who goes by @gnukeith on X. He posted a screenshot with the caption, “Perplexity step aside, you are being replaced soon.”
What you see is a split view. On the left, there’s a clean summary of whatever you searched for, written out in plain language with little citation numbers scattered through it, so you can trace where each fact came from. On the right, you get the actual web results and an image tab, laid out the way you’d expect from a normal search page. Underneath both panels is an “Ask anything” box, along with buttons labelled AI, Normal, and Deep, plus a dropdown pointing to an AI model. So you can basically pick how much thinking you want the thing to do before it answers.
If that sounds familiar, it’s because it’s more or less what Perplexity has been doing for a while now.
Now here’s where I have to pump the brakes a little. This is a concept. It’s running on localhost, which is just Keith’s own machine, not something you can go download today. And even he seems unsure about it.
In a reply, he wrote, “I have no idea if I’m allowed to release this but it is AWESOME, I just have no idea what to price it at.” So it’s clearly not ready for prime time, if at all.
Treat this as a fun peek at what one person on the team is tinkering with, and nothing more. There’s no guarantee Brave ships it, and even if it does, that could be a long way off.
That said, the browser recently crossed nearly 121 million monthly active users with its search engine hitting record query numbers, so leaning harder into AI-powered answers wouldn’t be a shock.
Brave has been busy on smaller stuff too. It’s been testing a Compact mode that trims the browser frame down, and it just rolled out Tree Tabs on stable behind a flag. An AI answer engine would be a much bigger swing, but for now, it’s just a screenshot and a maybe.
Dwayne Cubbins
2852 Posts
I cover fast-moving stories across apps, online platforms, and everyday tech — phones, wearables, consoles, and whatever else people are fighting with this week. Bugs, rollouts, scams, policy enforcement, and the occasional internet-culture rabbit hole are all fair game. My goal is simple — make confusing tech news readable. When I'm not working, I'm working out or chilling with my dog. Got a tip? You can find me on X @dcubbins.