AI chat that searches the web and cites its sources

Search earns its daily allowance when the answer can change: prices, release dates, news, software versions, opening hours, rules and deadlines. It is also the right tool when you need to know where a claim comes from.

It adds nothing when you are drafting, rewriting, brainstorming or working from a file you attached. For those, leave it off and keep your allowance. If a question is bigger than one lookup, such as comparing options across many sources, use deep research, which runs several searches and writes one report.

You can also paste a link into a message. Copilotly reads links it finds, and the chat shows Reading with the link while it does.

Citations make an answer checkable. They do not make it correct. A model can summarise a source badly, and a source can be wrong, out of date or written to sell you something. A good habit: open the one or two sources that your decision actually depends on and read the sentence the answer is based on.

For health, legal, tax and money questions, treat the result as background to take to a professional, not as advice. The comparison of AI and a financial advisor is a useful read on where that line sits.

Searches are metered per day:

• Free: 5 web searches a day. The chat shows how many are left, for example 3 of 5 free web searches left today, and when the allowance resets.
• Pro: 300 web searches a day.

When you use up a day's searches the chat does not stop. It tells you the answer is now from the model's own knowledge, without live sources, and offers Pro or Use my own key. Requests made on your own API key are never metered. Pro costs $6.99/week, $19.99/month or $149.99/year, with a 7-day free trial for first-time subscribers; see pricing.

Search works with the models in the picker, so you can pair it with the one you like for the final write-up, for example Gemini, Claude or GPT. Premium model replies still count against your premium allowance on Free, in addition to the search itself.

Perplexity is built around search and does that one job at length. Copilotly is a general assistant in your browser with search as one tool next to reading the page, summarizing videos and working with files. If search is all you want, a search-first product may suit you better; if you want it beside the page you are reading, it is here. See how we compare in our ChatGPT comparison.

The quality of cited answers depends heavily on how you ask. A few habits help.

• Name the thing and the time. What is the current pricing for X and when did it last change? beats how much is X?. The search is built from your wording.
• Ask for the source type you trust. Use official documentation or the vendor's own pricing page pushes the answer away from affiliate listicles.
• Ask for disagreement. Where do sources disagree? is a cheap way to surface a contested claim before you rely on it.
• Keep one question per search. Searches are counted per day. Three unrelated questions in one message tend to give three shallow answers.
• Follow up without searching. Once the sources are in the chat, you can ask for a rewrite, a table or a summary of them with Search turned off and keep your allowance.

When you see a source count at the end of an answer, spot-check it. Is the page from the site you expected? Is it dated? Does the sentence it supports appear on the page? If not, say so in the chat and ask for another route. Combine this with the video summaries and file chats when the evidence you need is a talk or a report rather than a web page.

The steps shown in the chat

The chat shows Searching the web, and for each page it opens it shows Reading with the site name. When it is done, the answer comes with a source count and the pages it used. If a step looks wrong, you can see where it went.

Search is not the same as a bigger model

The search happens first; the model then writes the answer from what it read. The model still decides what to include, and it can summarise a page badly. That is why the sources exist. If you want to know how the model providers describe their own search tools, see Anthropic's web search tool documentation and OpenAI's web search guide for background.

Pasting a link instead of searching

If you already know the page, paste its link in the message. The chat reads it without needing a search. For the page you are on, use the page context button, or summarize a video from its watch page.

Your question	Best way to ask
"What changed in X this month?"	Search on
"Explain what this paragraph means"	Search off, selected text
"What does this specific page say?"	Paste the link
"Compare five options in depth"	Deep research
"What does my contract say?"	Attach the file, chat with it

Four questions to ask of any cited page

1. Who wrote it? An official, primary source (the vendor, the regulator, the court) beats a summary of it.
2. When? A dated page matters for prices and rules. Look for the last-updated date.
3. Does the sentence appear? Search the page for the key phrase the answer relies on.
4. Is it selling something? Affiliate lists and comparison pages have an incentive.

Reading across sources

The Stanford History Education Group's Civic Online Reasoning materials teach checking claims by leaving the page and looking at what other sources say about it. You can use the chat for that: ask where do the sources disagree? or what is the original source for this figure?. Google's own guidance on helpful, reliable, people-first content is a decent checklist for judging a page, and Wikipedia's reliable sources guideline explains how editors weigh them.

It is good at

• Looking up a current price, version, date or announcement and telling you where it saw it.
• Reading several pages and pulling out the part that answers your question.
• Finding the official page for a form, a rule or a product.

It is weak at

• Anything behind a paywall or login, which it cannot read.
• Very recent or local events with little coverage.
• Judging which source is right when they disagree. That is your decision.

For personal finance, tax, health and legal questions, take the sources to a professional: see the model comparison for professional work to choose a model, and keep search for the facts.

With files and pages

Search for the official source, then attach your own document to chat with it and ask what is different. This is a good way to check a contract against the rule it claims to follow.

With deep research

One search answers one question. When the question needs several, switch to deep research and let it plan the searches. Free allows 1 deep research run a day and Pro 30.

With translation

If a source is in another language, translate the page with page translation and ask the chat about it, rather than relying on a translated snippet.

In the mobile apps

The same Search button is in the web app and the iOS and Android apps, which work on the free plan.