E 
Exa
A search engine built for AI agents rather than people.
NOT REALLY
why this verdict
Keep it — OpenAI has not replaced it
OpenAI's version overlaps, but does not finish the search job, so this one is still worth keeping open.
- A named launch, not a vibe named, unlinked
- Model providers bundle their own web search tools. OpenAI, February 1, 2025 — no announcement link recorded yet.
- How much of the job it covers not the job editorial call
- Parts of it. The job still needs the tool to get finished.
- Is there a free way to do it? yes
- 3 of 3 listed replacements have a usable free tier: Tavily, Serper and Brave Search API.
- What the call is worth nothing to cancel
- No paid entry tier tracked, so there is no subscription to cancel.
Reason composed from the fields above missing: announcement linked recorded: free replacement listed recorded: two or more escape hatches
- Threatened by
- OpenAI
- Since
- February 1, 2025
- List price
- free
- Per year
- —
The backstory
Exa indexes the web with embeddings so an agent can ask for the kind of page it wants rather than guessing keywords, and returns full contents instead of ten blue links. Native search tools inside chat products cover casual lookups; developers building research agents want the raw index.
Escape hatches
T 
Tavily Purpose-built agent search API.
tavily.com open_in_new S 
Serper Cheap Google results API.
serper.dev open_in_new B 
Brave Search API Independent index.
brave.com open_in_new3 of 3 replacements have a usable free tier.