Today, Anthropic introduced web search on the Anthropic API a new tool that allows Claude to access live, current information from the internet. This means developers can now build apps and AI agents using Claude that provide real-time insights.
Use the latest web info to power AI tools
Now, developers can combine Claude’s broad knowledge with up-to-date data by turning on the web search tool when they send requests to the Messages API.
When Claude gets a request that needs the latest information or specific knowledge, it uses its smart thinking to decide if a web search would help. If it would, Claude creates a targeted search, finds relevant results, reviews them, and gives a detailed answer with links to the original sources.
Claude can also act more independently doing multiple searches step by step, using earlier results to guide the next ones. Developers can control this with the max_uses setting. Claude may also improve its search queries automatically to get better results.
With this tool, developers don’t need to build their own web search system Claude can now do it for them.
What you can do with a web search?
Web search lets Claude handle many real-time or expert-level tasks across different industries, like.
- Financial services: Track live stock prices, market trends, and updates in rules.
- Legal research: Look up recent court cases, law changes, and legal news.
- Developer tools: Use the newest API docs, GitHub updates, and tech news.
- Productivity: Gather the latest company reports, competitor info, or industry trends.
Trust and control
Each web-sourced answer includes links to where the info came from, so users can check for themselves. This is very useful when accuracy is important.
You can also manage what Claude searches.
- Allow list: Choose specific websites Claude can use.
- Block list: Stop Claude from using certain sites, especially if they are sensitive or competitors.
- Organization settings: Admins can turn web search on or off for their whole organization.
Better coding with web search
Web search also works in Claude Code, helping developers by bringing in the newest documentation, technical posts, and tool info from the web. This is great for new tools, fixing rare bugs, or using APIs with version-specific features.
Customers using the web search
- Poe by Quora: Quora added a web search to its Poe AI platform.
- It is fast, cost-effective, and great for people who need real-time info with Claude,” says Spencer Chan, Head of Poe Product.
- Adaptive.ai: A tool that helps people build complete apps.
- Claude’s results are deep and accurate, better than other tools we tried,” says Dennis Xu, Co-founder of Adaptive.
How to start?
Web search is now available for,
Price: $10 per 1,000 searches, plus the usual token costs.
To use it, just turn on the web search tool in your API request. Check out Anthropic’s documentation and pricing page to learn more.
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