Author: Iris Chen, Dr. Nick
The rapid development of artificial intelligence technology has brought revolutionary changes to search engines. OpenAI's entry into the search engine field to challenge search giants such as GOOGLE may bring a revolutionary impact to the industry and also bring new opportunities for Web3.0 artificial intelligence search engines. The core values of Web3.0 - decentralization, user sovereignty and data privacy - are reshaping the future of the Internet. The combination of Web3.0 and AI search engines will give birth to a more fair, transparent and efficient way to obtain information, breaking the monopoly of traditional search engines and giving users more control.
1. Development trend of Web3.0 search engines
At present, multiple sources have confirmed that OpenAI is about to release the ChatGPT search engine to challenge Google Search!
(1) OpenAI’s major challenge to Google: When search meets AI
Currently, the top three search engines in the world are Google, Bing, and Yahoo. Google is the only one with a market share of about 90%. Since then, search engines, as the core tool for obtaining information in the Internet era, have evolved from simple keyword matching to semantic understanding. However, traditional search engines represented by Google still have many limitations, which restrict users' freedom and control over obtaining information:
Data monopoly and privacy leakage: Traditional search engine companies control a huge amount of user data and use it to build a huge business empire. User data is collected, analyzed and used, but there is a lack of transparency and control, which has caused serious privacy leakage and data abuse problems, such as targeted advertising, user portrait construction, etc., which infringe on the privacy rights of users.
Centralized control and algorithmic bias: Traditional search engines’ algorithms and ranking mechanisms are opaque and susceptible to human intervention and algorithmic bias, resulting in a lack of objectivity and fairness in search results. For example, search results may be influenced by commercial interests, giving priority to displaying paid ads or content from specific websites rather than information that best meets user needs.
Information cocoon and content homogeneity: Personalized recommendation algorithms may cause users to fall into information cocoons, where the information they are exposed to is increasingly monotonous and lacks diversified viewpoints and information sources. This is not conducive to users obtaining comprehensive information and may exacerbate social division and polarization.
As a leading company in the field of artificial intelligence, OpenAI's entry into the search engine field is of great significance and may have an impact on the existing landscape:
OpenAI has leading technical advantages in natural language processing and deep learning. Its GPT series of models excel in understanding and generating text, which will bring more powerful semantic understanding capabilities to search engines, improve the relevance and accuracy of search results, and potentially enable more natural and intelligent search interactions.
OpenAI’s technology can better analyze user behavior and preferences, provide more personalized search results, and customize user interfaces and features to improve user experience and satisfaction;
OpenAI may explore new search modes and interaction methods, such as dialogue-based search, multimodal search, etc., bringing new development directions to the industry.
(2) New opportunities for Web3.0 search engines: When Web3.0 meets AI
Although artificial intelligence (AI) technology has brought revolutionary progress to search engines, problems such as data bias and algorithm transparency still exist. To address these problems, blockchain technology and the Web3.0 concept provide new ideas and solutions.
2. Web3.0 search engine related projects
The integration of Web3.0 and AI technology will give birth to a new generation of search engines that will pay more attention to user privacy protection, data security, algorithm transparency and decentralized governance. Current Web3.0 search engine projects include Presearch, Brave, Adot, KaitoAI, YaCy and Xayn.
Presearch: Presearch provides users with more control over search results. Presearch runs on node servers run by community members, providing better results while protecting user privacy. Users receive crypto tokens for searching and contributing to the community. Presearch has good development prospects, but needs to strengthen technological innovation and market competitiveness to maintain its leading position in the highly competitive market.
Brave Search: The default search engine for Brave browser users, built on its own independent web index and not dependent on Google, Bing or other major search engines. It is currently the independent search engine with the most users, but Brave has a low degree of decentralization.
Adot: Adot aims to create a decentralized data market and knowledge graph, and use AI technology to provide semantic understanding and intelligent search capabilities. Adot's technical architecture is advanced, but the project is still in its early stages of development and it will take time to build a complete ecosystem and attract more users.
KaitoAI : KaitoAI focuses on semantic search and intelligent question answering, using natural language processing and knowledge graph technology to provide users with more accurate and personalized search results. However, KaitoAI is also an early-stage project and needs time to accumulate data and improve technology to gain a competitive advantage in the market.
YaCy : YaCy is a long-established open source search engine project that uses a P2P network architecture and has a high degree of customization and privacy protection. However, YaCy's user interface and search experience are relatively poor, and it lacks the application of AI technology, making it difficult to meet the needs of modern users for search engines.
Xayn: Xayn uses federated learning technology to provide personalized search results while protecting user privacy. However, Xayn is still in its early stages of development, and its technical architecture and business model are not yet clear.
In the future, the key competition among Web3.0 artificial intelligence search engines will take place in the following aspects. Whoever achieves the goal first will occupy the competitive high ground.
Innovation in multimodal search and interaction methods: Search engines will support richer search and interaction methods, such as voice search, image search, virtual reality search, etc. In the future, search engine optimization will include spatial computing such as the metaverse and virtual reality to enhance the interaction between humans and machines.
Deep integration of the semantic web and knowledge graphs: Search engines will be able to better understand the relationships between information and provide more accurate and comprehensive search results.
Personalized and customized search experience: The search engine will provide customized search results and recommended content based on the user's personalized needs.
Decentralized and community-driven development model: Users will participate in the governance and development of search engines, and jointly create a more fair, transparent and efficient way to obtain information in the future.
3. Presearch: Can the Phoenix rise from the ashes and be reborn?
If Web3.0 becomes the core of the next generation of the Internet, then it will definitely need its own "GOOGLE" based on the web3.0 architecture to meet users' needs for data privacy and decentralized search, which provides a huge market opportunity for Presearch.
(1) Drastic restructuring
Presearch has been continuously improving and developing since its establishment in 2017, and has achieved considerable results. For example, in 2021, Presearch became the default search engine for new Android devices sold in Europe, and the number of registered users increased by 108% year-on-year. However, in the subsequent bear market, like other Web3.0 projects, Presearch also encountered difficulties such as funding shortages, team reductions, and slow product iterations; at the same time, compared with the industry leader Brave Search, there is also a large gap in terms of user numbers and revenue scale.
In order to catch up with its competitors and realize the vision of becoming the "Google of the Web3 decentralized era", the project has undergone drastic changes, introduced the Digital Capital team, strengthened the driving force of artificial intelligence technology, improved the technical architecture, and accelerated the development and market expansion of AI-centric products. At present, significant progress has been made on both the product and market sides.
Digital Capital Team: The CEO, CFO, AI Director and project manager have all been replaced by the Digital Capital team. The CEO is Tim Enneking, who is expected to bring his rich management experience, investment funds and industry connections to the project.
Core AI developer: Trey Grainger, a graduate of Stanford University, is an expert in AI search engines, the author of AI-Powered Search, and the most active developer on presearch’s github.
Chief Product Officer: Jeff Hunt, founder of the search project Scout, became Chief Product Officer of Presearch after Presearch acquired Scout at the end of 2024.
Data Scientist: Joshua Paul Barnard, a graduate of Johns Hopkins University, is dedicated to creating and enhancing AI chatbots with coding capabilities.
(2) Product side: focus on developing AI products
The Presearch team, which has been significantly strengthened after the reorganization, is using blockchain technology and artificial intelligence to rapidly improve the intelligence level of search engines, and greatly improve user experience and search result quality. The web3.0 architecture based on decentralized node layout makes Presearch more adaptable to integrating third-party decentralized artificial intelligence models, computing power and data, and has certain inherent advantages over competitors in building future decentralized search engines. According to community information, the project will also release a new generation of white papers based on the latest progress, which means that the project will usher in a new milestone.
First, the project began to integrate AI-driven results into its search engine in 2023, and joined NVIDIA Inception in October 2023. At the same time, it acquired the professional search project Scout to help Presearch accelerate the construction and promotion of the next generation of decentralized AI search. So far, its core product pregptAi has been developed for nearly a year. It has provided ChatGPT-based AI search since August 2023, and will launch its own AI chatbot based on decentralized computing power in 2024.
At the same time, Presearch is improving the blockchain architecture based on Cosmos, leveraging Cosmos' advantages in interoperability, scalability, ease of development, and security to establish the Depin hardware foundation for the era of artificial intelligence.
Next, the project continues to develop high-quality AI or meta-AI search integration. Presearch brings together thousands of AI service providers and provides the best search results. For example, large models such as GrorkX, GPT4, and llama will be added after the API is available, and even proprietary data sets can be used to improve search results. Since decentralized nodes are used to access the API, results are returned to users from a large number of AI services, all of which are anonymous and private.
In the future, it is possible to support richer search and interaction methods, such as voice search, image search, virtual reality search, etc., support spatial computing, metaverse and virtual reality, and enhance human-computer interaction.
The main achievements so far:
Released a new AI product: PreGPTMVP, which revolutionizes AI chatbots through decentralized computing power and privacy.
Participation in NVIDIA Inception: 2023 will help accelerate plans to build and advance the next generation of decentralized AI search and will also provide opportunities to collaborate with industry-leading experts and other AI-driven organizations.
Acquisition of Scout Search: In 2023, Presearch acquired Scout Search. This acquisition gave Presearch the opportunity to provide search services to a new group of people seeking safer online exploration, laying the foundation for the project's cutting-edge technology to be used in the enterprise
(3) Market side: Rapid growth in users and revenue
After the new team was reorganized, the project has made increasingly significant progress in market development and monetization.
The number of registered users has reached 4.5M, with 1.1M monthly active users and the total daily search volume exceeding 800k times.
As of May 24, 355.9 million PRE have been staked, close to half of the total supply.
The project revenue is growing rapidly, with PTA prices rising 33% and revenue doubling in the first three months. The revenue is expected to grow 500% in the first half of the year. As of May 1, revenue exceeded that of April and may double again.
(4) Token Economics:
Presearch's ERC20 token is $PRE, and it is currently planning to migrate to Cosmos. The technical maximum supply of PRE tokens is set at 1 billion tokens. The current supply is 750 million. As of May 8, Presearch's circulating market value is approximately $11 million, and FDV is approximately $16 million.
PRE tokens have multiple uses within the Presearch platform, such as paying search fees, rewarding content contributors, participating in community governance, etc., which gives PRE tokens real value and liquidity.
The token contract allows for the minting and burning of tokens, and the project plans to give back up to 20% of revenue to users, node operators in the form of increased platform rewards, token buybacks, or marketing campaigns to support the project and its surrounding community.
4. Conclusion
The rapid development of artificial intelligence technology has brought revolutionary changes to search engines and provided Presearch with huge market opportunities. In order to meet the revolutionary new opportunities brought by artificial intelligence to search engines and seize the competitive high ground of Web3.0 search engines, Presearch made major adjustments to its project strategy in the middle of 23 years, strengthened the driving force of artificial intelligence technology, optimized and adjusted the blockchain architecture, and has made significant progress in both the product and market ends. At present, Presearch's major changes have not been completed, and its product experience is still quite far from that of the industry leader. Its revenue growth rate is relatively fast, but the absolute amount is not high. However, we are more looking forward to its rebirth after a desperate restructuring.
5. Risk Warning:
Market risk: The cryptocurrency market is volatile, and the price of PRE tokens may be affected by market sentiment and overall market conditions.
Project development risks: Presearch is still in the development stage, and there is great uncertainty in its technological development, market expansion and business model innovation.
Competition risk: The search engine market is highly competitive, and Presearch faces competitive pressure from mainstream search engines.
