Anthropic launches an AI-powered web search API.

Anthropic has announced the launch of a new API that allows its AI models, Claude, to perform web searches. According to the company, this tool will provide developers with the ability to create applications powered by Claude that offer up-to-date information. The introduction of this API comes at a time when AI companies are exploring various ways to enhance their models to attract new users.

Last week, Anthropic also introduced a tool to connect applications to Claude, as well as an expanded "deep research" capability that allows Claude to search business accounts, websites, and more. According to the company's statement, "developers can now enrich Claude's extensive knowledge with real-world, up-to-date data by enabling the web search tool when making requests to our API." With this functionality, developers can build AI solutions that access current information without having to manage their own web search infrastructure.

When the web search API is activated, Claude uses "reasoning" capabilities to assess whether a specific request would benefit from updated information or specialized knowledge. If Claude decides to perform a web search, it will generate a search query, retrieve results, analyze them, and provide a response with citations. It also has the ability to refine its queries and perform multiple searches, using previous results to improve subsequent queries. Developers can customize this behavior and specify the domains from which Claude can or cannot search. Additionally, it is possible to enable or disable web search at the organizational level.

The cost for using this API starts at $10 for every thousand searches and is compatible with the Claude 3.7 Sonnet, Claude 3.5 Sonnet, and Claude 3.5 Haiku models. Furthermore, it has been reported that web search will also be available in Claude Code, the tool that allows developers to use Claude to complete various coding tasks. With web search enabled, Claude Code will be able to access up-to-date API documentation, technical articles, and other information related to development tools and libraries. Currently, Claude Code is in beta as a research preview.