You.com

You.com is an AI-powered search engine that combines web search with conversational AI and autonomous research agents. Its Smart mode delivers quick answers with source citations, while Research mode deploys an AI agent that reads dozens of web pages, synthesizes findings, and produces comprehensive reports with footnotes — essentially automating hours of manual research into minutes.

Genius mode provides access to frontier models like GPT-4o and Claude for complex reasoning tasks. What makes You.com unique is its focus on transparency: every AI-generated answer shows its sources inline, and you can toggle between AI answers and traditional search results.

The platform also offers a multi-model playground where you can send the same prompt to different models simultaneously and compare their outputs side by side. You.com's privacy stance is a key differentiator — it does not train on user data and offers a clear privacy-first approach.

Custom AI assistants can be built with specific instructions and knowledge sources, useful for teams that need domain-specific research tools. The free tier covers Smart mode and limited Genius queries, while You Pro unlocks unlimited access to premium models and Research mode. It sits in an interesting niche between Perplexity's answer engine approach and traditional chatbot interfaces.