Yahoo is officially back in the search conversation, with Yahoo Scout, a new AI-powered answer engine that aims to take on Google’s AI Mode and Perplexity by doing something surprisingly old-school. Instead of hiding links behind buttons or footnotes, Scout places them front and center and makes clicking links part of the experience.
Yahoo Scout is entering the AI search race with a different playbook
Scout is touted as an “answer machine” rather than an AI chatbot. When you ask a question, you get a clear, understandable answer, but one peppered with visible blue links. Up to nine sources can be displayed for a single query, along with a complete list of where the information comes from.
Yahoo says this is intentional. While competitors focus on smooth summaries, Scout is designed to keep the web visible rather than replace it. This move directly addresses publishers’ concerns that Google’s AI search is quietly sucking up traffic.
Yahoo Scout is rolling out to U.S. users in beta starting today, available at scout.yahoo.com and in the Yahoo Search app for iOS and Android.
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Under the hood, Scout runs on Anthropic’s Claude model, combined with Yahoo’s own data, audio and extensive content library. This includes Yahoo News, Finance, Sports and other verticals, as well as web results powered by Microsoft Bing.
The result will look familiar if you’ve used Perplexity or Google’s AI mode, but the presentation is very different. Links are treated as a point, not an afterthought, and the interface feels more like a curated guide than a chatty assistant.
There is also a business reason for this approach. Yahoo doesn’t have a massive search ad empire to protect, which gives it more freedom than Google to rely on AI answers without fear of its core revenue being cannibalized.
CEO Jim Lanzone told The Verge that Scout is on track to eventually replace traditional Yahoo Search and that the company is already monetizing it through affiliate links and ads at the bottom of results.
Compared to Perplexity and Google’s AI mode, Scout is less about being your AI companion and more about providing a quick and convenient way to find reliable information. It’s not about being smart or personal. Yahoo reckons that in a world full of AI summaries and synthetic answers, simply pointing people clearly to the source could be the most radical step of all.
