Learn what You.com does in 2026: AI-powered search, model-agnostic chat, the ARI research agent, and how its pricing has shifted toward enterprise API access.
You.com is an AI search and research platform that pairs a chat-style assistant with live web retrieval, so answers are grounded in cited sources rather than generated from a model's training data alone. It was founded in 2020 by Richard Socher and Bryan McCann, both formerly of Salesforce's AI research team, and is headquartered in Palo Alto, California.
The product opened to public beta in late 2021, positioning itself as a privacy-conscious alternative to mainstream search engines. Its defining technical choice is being model agnostic: users and API customers can route requests across different large language models from multiple providers rather than being locked into one.
In 2025, You.com introduced ARI, a deep-research AI agent aimed at professional and regulated-industry research work, marking a shift in the company's focus from consumer search toward enterprise research and retrieval infrastructure.
You.com's chat assistant grounds responses in real-time web citations, letting users verify claims against the original sources rather than trusting an ungrounded model output.
Because the platform is model agnostic, users and enterprise customers can select or blend outputs from multiple leading language models rather than being tied to a single vendor's model.
ARI, the company's research agent, can scan a large number of public and private sources for a single research task and assemble a structured report with citations, charts and visualizations, aimed at use cases like market research, due diligence and regulated-industry analysis.
You.com's pricing has changed significantly over its history. It originally offered a free consumer tier alongside a Pro subscription priced around $20 per month, which unlocked access to additional AI models, file uploads and larger context windows.
By mid-2026 the consumer pricing page had been removed from public view, reflecting the company's pivot away from a seat-priced consumer search product.
Current commercial engagement is centered on usage-based API and enterprise licensing for the retrieval and ARI research capabilities, typically arranged directly with the company rather than through a self-serve public pricing page.
You.com is an AI search and research platform that combines a chat assistant with live web retrieval and citations, plus an enterprise research agent called ARI.
You.com was founded in 2020 by Richard Socher and Bryan McCann, both former Salesforce AI executives.
ARI (Advanced Research and Insights) is You.com's deep-research AI agent, launched in 2025, that scans large numbers of public and private sources to produce cited research reports with charts and visuals.
You.com previously offered a free consumer tier and a paid Pro plan, but by mid-2026 its consumer pricing page was no longer public as the company shifted toward enterprise and usage-based API pricing.
You.com is model agnostic, meaning it lets users and API customers route requests across multiple large language model providers rather than relying on a single proprietary model.
You.com is headquartered in Palo Alto, California.
You.com raised a $100 million Series C round led by Cox Enterprises in September 2025 at a reported $1.5 billion valuation.