Moving, confused. There’s a new AI-powered search engine in town, and its creators believe it can outperform many other attempts out there.
Named ginspark, the platform leverages generative AI to write personalized summaries in response to search queries. Type a search like “What is the best baby formula for newborns?” Genspark will create a Sparkpage: a single page overview pulled together from websites and content on the web.
It’s a similar experience (obviously) to the Arc Search feature in Arc Browser, which launched earlier this year, and Google’s AI Overviews feature in Google Search. But Eric Jing, who co-founded the eponymous foundation behind Genspark with Kai Zhou in 2023, claims that Genspark is able to deliver higher-quality results by adopting a more surgical approach.
“Genspark uses several specialized AI models, each designed to process specific types of queries,” Jing told TechCrunch. “Sparkpages is very much like distilling and standardizing the existing web; we also enrich this data with comprehensive data, and it appears to users as an index of the existing web.
Under the hood, Genspark relies on internally trained models as well as external models from OpenAI, Anthropic, and others to classify users’ search queries and determine how to organize and present results. The basic AI-generated summary is populated at the top of each results page, followed by a link to the more detailed Sparkpage.
For example, for travel-related searches, Genspark will offer a Wikipedia-like Sparkpage complete with a table of contents, videos of popular nearby destinations, tips, and a chatbot to answer questions on various subtopics (e.g. “List of top cultural sites” experience). Meanwhile, product searches on Genspark produce Sparkpages containing a list of pros and cons about the product being discussed, as well as comments and reviews aggregated from social media, publications, and e-commerce stores.
“Our AI models favor high-authority and popular web pages, which does a lot to filter out more ‘out there’ information,” Jing said.
Much has been written about what went wrong with AI-generated overviews. Google’s AI Overviews feature suggested putting glue on the pizza. Arc Search told a reporter that the toes were severed It will grow back eventually. And confusion break up Articles written by media outlets including CNBC, Bloomberg, and Forbes without mentioning the source or attribution.
So has Genspark solved all the safety and accuracy issues? Well not quite.
Genspark didn’t ask me to make a pizza out of glue, nor did he insist on it The health benefits of running with scissors, or that former US President Barack Obama practices Islam. But the search engine an act Few weapons recommend that I might use it to kill someone.
![ginspark](https://techcrunch.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Screenshot-2024-06-11-at-4.42.08 PM.png?w=680)
Ethically questionable research results aren’t the only controversy Genspark faces. These and other similar platforms threaten to cannibalize traffic to the sites from which they derive their information.
In fact, they already are.
One study found that an overview of artificial intelligence can It negatively affects about 25% of publisher traffic Because of the lack of focus on web page links. In terms of revenue, an expert told the New York Post estimated AI-generated overviews could result in losses for publishers of more than $2 billion thanks to the resulting drop in ad views.
I couldn’t find examples of outright plagiarism on Genspark, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. Sparkpages, like Wikipedia pages, are not static. After Genspark’s AI creates the outline, anyone can share and edit copies of Sparkpage and add any information they wish — including things that are offensive, wrong, or stolen.
What’s more – at least for now – there’s no way to report problematic Sparkpages.
Jing says Sparkpages are open and editable by design to allow users to validate claims, and that Genspark’s AI systems take every edit into account to improve results in the future. He also says Genspark plans to license copyrighted content — including publisher content — where it makes sense, with the goal of improving the engine’s overall fidelity.
“We take data quality very seriously, and we believe data quality is the key to winning this race,” Jing said. “Respect for intellectual property is a fundamental value.”
![ginspark](https://techcrunch.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Screenshot-2024-06-11-at-9.19.48 PM.png?w=680)
How much will Genspark pay for the IP? This has not been hashed out yet. So does Genspark’s business model: Jing says the platform will offer “premium features” in the future, but details are still unclear.
Despite the fact that Genspark is still in the early stages in terms of its roadmap, and has significant technical hurdles – as well as legal and ethical hurdles – ahead of it, the startup has managed to close a large $60 million seed round, led by venture capital firm Lanchi Headquartered in Singapore. Projects worth $260 million after critical evaluation.
Joey Tan, managing partner at Lanchi, called Genspark’s approach “really compelling” and said he trusted Jing’s and Zhu’s technical direction, pointing to the duo’s previous experiences building artificial intelligence and research products.
Jing was previously a development director at Microsoft’s Bing team and a senior product manager at Chinese tech giant Baidu’s basic search and artificial intelligence divisions. Zhu, also a former Google and Baidu employee focused on search, partnered with Jing four years ago to launch Xiaodu, a hardware startup that builds smart devices similar to the Amazon Echo.
“Eric and Kai are seasoned entrepreneurs with a proven track record of developing successful products and businesses, particularly in the areas of artificial intelligence and research,” Tan told TechCrunch. “Their team’s extensive experience puts them in a unique position to lead groundbreaking innovations.”
But I think it’s an uphill battle.
Assuming for a moment that Genspark can solve emerging technology problems, outline a plan to generate revenue and scale its small team (about 20 people) based in Singapore and the Bay Area, none of which are straightforward tasks, it will face intense competitive pressure from rival startups with Hundreds of millions of dollars in the bank — not to mention search companies like Google.
So can GenSpark truly Does it escape the bad optics and failed go-to-market strategies that have plagued other attempts at AI-powered search engines? And can it carve out a niche in the future, like OpenAI? Launches a comparable tool?
I am not convinced. But Jing is adamant that it is possible.
“Many Internet users, especially those younger than Google, don’t want to be given a list of links and then left to figure out the rest on their own, all while navigating sponsored content and SEO-driven content that game the system,” Jing said. They want to find what they need faster, they want more visible results, and they want to know that the results are trustworthy. With AI, we can achieve all of that, and we launched Genspark to meet those needs.