3 ms·

Strangely: "Searches are, unexpectedly, more expensive for us to serve than AI. A user that does only traditional searches (not using Assistant) will cost more

• EbNar 7mo ago
  Yeah, that reply is a mildly infuriating, in view of what they're planning.
• luke5441 7mo ago
  How can this be true? Should I not worry about margin compression at Google due to heavy cap-ex requirements anymore? Is this temporary because Kagi got a good deal for tokens? Are they paying through their noses for the Google search API calls? I don't get it.
  • techjamie 7mo ago
    Because they pay API costs to send the search to SerpApi. I forget exactly what the cost was for them per-search and I'm having little luck finding it, but I know they've published that cost before and I know it's more than a whole cent. By comparison, running a good but not top-tier model to answer the same question might run a small fraction of a cent. Cheaper than a follow up query by the user.
• DamnInteresting 7mo ago
  > A user that does only traditional searches (not using Assistant) will cost more on our end than someone using AI + search. Unless I am missing something, that appears to be a mathematically impossible claim. They are saying A > A+B, where both A and B are positive values. I suppose it could be that non-AI users do more total searches, and the extras add up. Hmm.
  • nchagnet 7mo ago
    They're likely saying that at equal usage, the user with mixed usage will cost less because the cost of B is lower than A.
    • mastermage 7mo ago
      how do you quantify equal usage?
  • xigoi 7mo ago
    I think their point is that an AI user makes fewer searches on average because AI helps ttem find what they’re looking for faster.