Will answer engines replace search? Four builders on the web's future
October 5, 2026 · 15 min read
Marc Andreessen asks whether AI will replace search, Aravind Srinivas explains why Perplexity builds an answer engine and avoids Google's game, Sam Altman weighs search and ads, and Jimmy Wales considers what language models mean for Wikipedia. Their views show how the way people find information online may change and who stands to lose.
The rules, numbers and steps worth keeping in front of you.
- Three of four builders expect answers to displace the page of links; none says search disappears.
- Andreessen: AI treats the internet as its content and can produce links on request.
- Andreessen: if nobody visits web pages, people stop making them and training data dries up.
- Srinivas: an answer engine searches, reads the results and writes an answer with sources.
- His rule for the model: say nothing it did not retrieve.
- Srinivas: answers that cut link clicks hurt Google's best business, which is the opening.
- Google remains better for known sites and live information such as sports scores.
- Altman: beating Google is the wrong goal; nobody has cracked language models plus search.
- Altman: ad-supported products get worse with AI; paying users get uninfluenced answers.
- Wales: the business model drives outcomes; refusing ads keeps a source honest.
- Wales: donations suffer if users never learn where knowledge came from.
- Made-up answers will improve, but Altman expects no quick cure.
- A citation shows where a claim came from, not that it is true.
- Statements here are dated; check current products, terms and law.
This is the short form. The full insight has every expert's reasoning, their own words and the sources.