The privacy-focused search engine searching for to deliver again user-first search has given up its dream of difficult Google’s hegemony.
It seems that “building a search engine is hard,” admitted Neeva’s founders Sridhar Ramaswamy and Vivek Raghunathan—one thing that can come as no shock when your greatest rival is an organization with near-endless assets.
The service is formally shutting down on June 2, with the tech startup set to tackle one other problem anytime quickly. So, what’s subsequent within the pipeline for Neeva?
Hard to persuade customers of “the need to switch”
“We’ve discovered that it is one thing to build a search engine, and an entirely different thing to convince regular users of the need to switch to a better choice,” stated Neeva’s founders in a joint official announcement.
This is a really totally different perspective to the one expressed once we chatted to Ramaswamy in November final 12 months about his journey from working as Google Head of Ads to develop an ad-free search engine. Launched within the US in 2019, at the moment Neeva had simply prolonged its operations in Europe as properly.
Then, when the ChatGPT frenzy began to kick in, the startup was the primary to launch its AI-powered chatbot NeevaAI with the mission of fixing a damaged market. The future for the service was trying brilliant, with the potential to turn into an on a regular basis privateness software together with the perfect VPNs and antivirus software program.
However, because it turned out, persuading customers to attempt a brand new search engine was simpler stated than performed. According to Neeva’s founders, this was much more tough than getting folks to improve to its paid plan.
“These headwinds, combined with the different economic environment, have made it clear that there is no longer a path towards creating a sustainable business in consumer search. As a result, over the next few weeks, we will be shutting down neeva.com and our consumer search product, and shifting to a new area of focus.”
It is with heavy hearts we announce https://t.co/aZwoDBEZq0 will shut down over the following few weeks.We admire our passionate neighborhood of clients & customers which have supported us over the previous few years. We thanks for understanding. Here’s some extra info May 20, 2023
Exactly what’s subsequent in Neeva’s pipeline has but to be revealed. However, its leaving assertion provides away some clues of what the longer term for the tech startup might appear to be.
Developing NeevaAI to present customers with cited and real-time AI solutions to their queries implies that the workforce has already developed experience across the use of Large Language Models (LLMs). The founders are stated to be dedicated to following this path and constructing upon the “pressing need” to apply this new know-how in a more practical, cheap, protected and accountable means.
Another clue of that comes from the announcement that cloud host supplier Snowflakes is in “advanced talks to acquire the startup in order to help develop services for customers that want to use artificial intelligence software,” The Information reported.
While we’re anticipating to see Neeva’s new merchandise within the AI realm within the close to future, the service is now encouraging its present customers to search for extra non-public options. DuckDuckGo and Mojeek are amongst our favorites for the time being.
“We are truly grateful to our community, and we are truly sorry that we aren’t able to continue to provide the search engine that you want and deserve.”
Compare in the present day’s finest total VPNs
