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Neeva, the ad-free and privacy-focused search engine founded by a former Google executive, has announced its decision to shut down due to challenges in attracting subscribers. The search engine differentiated itself by offering a subscription-based model instead of displaying ads to users. Despite this approach, Neeva struggled to convince users to pay for its service. In an attempt to leverage its expertise in artificial intelligence (AI), the company began providing AI-generated answers to search queries. However, Neeva now plans to explore alternative AI business opportunities using the knowledge it gained from developing these capabilities.
The closure of Neeva is scheduled for June 2nd, and the company has assured users that they will receive refunds for the unused portion of their subscriptions. Sridhar Ramaswamy, a former Google ad executive and the creator of Neeva, expressed his disillusionment with the technology sector’s exploitative handling of user data, which motivated him to establish an ad-free search engine. However, Ramaswamy and co-founder Vivek Raghunathan acknowledged the difficulty in persuading users to switch from established search engines to a new and better alternative. They attributed this challenge to the dominance of well-established organizations with vast resources and the friction associated with changing default search settings.
Neeva, which had raised $77.5 million in funding and employed approximately 50 individuals, will now redirect its focus toward finding commercial opportunities to apply its AI expertise. Particularly, the company aims to leverage large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT, which power chatbots, to address the growing demand for effective, affordable, safe, and responsible AI applications. The founders of Neeva expressed their commitment to exploring how their search and LLM capabilities can be utilized in various settings, emphasizing their intention to provide updates on their future work and team in the coming weeks.
