Search reimagined as an API — built for agents, not humans.
Exa (formerly Metaphor) is a neural search engine designed to be called by code, not typed into by humans. Instead of keyword matching, it uses embeddings to find the most semantically relevant content on the web — perfect for RAG pipelines, research agents, and AI features that need real-time grounding. If you're building an agent, Exa is the search layer you reach for.
Who it's for: Developers and AI startups embedding web search into agents, RAG systems, and research automation.
Embedding-based retrieval returns semantically relevant results, not keyword matches.
One call to search the web from any app or agent.
Let Exa plan and run multi-step research queries for you.
Fetch full page content for grounding, not just links.
Exa is the best web-search API for AI agents in 2026. If you're building RAG or research automation, it's close to a default choice — semantic relevance does what keyword search can't. The free tier is enough to prototype; just model the per-call cost before you scale.