Anthropic’s AI-powered chatbot, Claude, has been enhanced to include web search capabilities, a feature previously unavailable to it. This functionality is currently in preview for paid users in the U.S., with plans to extend access to free users and expand availability to additional countries in the near future. Users can enable web search through the profile settings on the Claude web app, allowing the chatbot to automatically search across sites to inform specific responses, as announced by Anthropic on its blog.
At present, the web search function is compatible only with the latest Anthropic model powering Claude, known as Claude 3.7 Sonnet. When Claude incorporates information from the web into its responses, it provides direct citations, enabling users to easily verify sources. According to Anthropic, rather than requiring users to find search results independently, Claude processes and delivers relevant sources in a conversational format. This update broadens Claude’s knowledge base with real-time insights, offering answers based on more current information.
The addition of web search aligns Claude with other leading AI-powered chatbots like OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini, and Mistral’s Le Chat, which all feature similar capabilities. Previously, Anthropic stated that Claude was “designed to be self-contained,” but competitive pressures may have influenced this change in strategy.
However, there remains a risk that Claude may generate inaccuracies or misattribute web sources, an issue common among other chatbots. A study conducted by the Tow Center for Digital Journalism revealed that popular chatbots, including ChatGPT and Gemini, provide incorrect answers to over 60% of questions.
