Meta is developing a search engine so it can decrease its reliance on Google and Microsoft

According to a new report, Meta has been indexing the web for at least eight months. The company aims to have its own search engine that can be called on and integrated into Meta AI. This will give its chatbot and other generative AI tools an alternative to Google Search and Microsoft Bing while decreasing the company's reliance on the services of its competitors.

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Meta has been using web crawlers for a while, which are part of Facebook and 'crawl' the content and information of links shared on Meta's social media platform. This is different in that it would be used primarily for AI search, and as such, it would need to scrape and crawl the entire internet for information and training.

The company has yet to detail its search engine plans formally. Still, it recently announced a multi-year partnership with a news outlet, Reuters, for the Meta AI chatbot to use the source with citations when answering questions.

It's unclear if Google or Microsoft is currently charging Meta for access to web searches; however, another reason Meta would look toward creating a search engine is redundancy. If access to Google Search or Microsoft Bing was revoked or stopped for any reason, it makes sense to have a backup or alternative solution.

Meta AI is also growing rapidly, with Mark Zuckerberg stating at the Meta Connect 2024 in September that the platform has "almost" 500 million monthly active users. "We're almost at 500 million monthly activities, and we haven't even launched in some of the bigger countries yet," Zuckerberg said, referencing the EU and its many countries where Meta AI has yet to become available.