Exa is a web search API for AI apps needing realtime web data, structured results, and grounded citations. Supports search, research, retrieval, monitoring, and enrichment.

Exa preview

Overview

Exa is a web search API and AI search platform built for applications that need current information from the web. The site describes it as a modern AI search engine with search, crawling, deep research, and monitoring products for agent workflows.

Its core value is helping AI systems retrieve realtime web data, structured results, and grounded citations for tasks such as coding assistance, research, company and people lookup, enrichment, and news monitoring. Pricing information also shows a free tier and paid usage across multiple endpoints, with enterprise options for higher-volume or custom deployments.

Features

Real-time search

Search returns real-time web search data and is positioned for latency-sensitive agent workflows, with configurable latency from 180ms to 1s.

Deep research workflows

Deep is built for complex search tasks and multi-step research, with structured outputs and web-grounded citations.

Web content retrieval

Contents provides full-page web contents with token-efficient highlights and configurable livecrawl policies for AI context.

Web monitoring

Monitors tracks new events and updates across the web on a specified cadence and can send updates through webhooks.

Research and enrichment output

Agent supports asynchronous research, list building, and enrichment with structured outputs and citations.

Enterprise controls

The pricing page shows enterprise options for custom datasets, custom rate limits, moderation, zero data retention, and onboarding support.

Use cases

  • Coding agents

    Build coding assistants that search docs, repositories, and changelogs in real time so answers reflect current package and API references.

  • Company and people search

    Support lead enrichment or company research workflows with structured company data and grounded citations.

  • Deep research

    Run complex research queries that require structured outputs, such as product, market, or scientific lookup tasks.

  • News and event monitoring

    Track fresh web events and updates on a schedule, then push results through webhooks or downstream automations.

  • LLM context retrieval

    Retrieve full-page web content and highlights to give models more context while keeping token use efficient.

Pros and Cons

Pros

  • Covers multiple related workflows in one platform, including search, deep research, crawling, monitoring, and enrichment.
  • Emphasizes realtime retrieval and token-efficient outputs for AI systems.
  • Provides structured outputs and citations on selected products.
  • Includes a free tier plus paid and enterprise options.
  • Shows use cases across coding, company search, people search, chatbots, and monitoring.

Cons

  • The source does not provide complete documentation for setup, integrations, or all API behaviors on the pages reviewed.
  • Some product details are only partially evidenced, so this page should be read as a high-level summary rather than a full technical reference.

FAQ

What products does Exa offer?

Exa is a web search API for AI applications. The source pages describe Search for real-time search results, Deep for multi-step research workflows, Contents for full-page web content with highlights, and Monitors for tracking new web events on a cadence.

Does Exa have a free tier?

The pricing page shows a Free tier with up to 20,000 requests per month, plus paid usage for Search, Deep Search, Contents, Monitors, and Agent. The site also offers enterprise and startup/education options.

What is Exa commonly used for?

The source pages show Exa being used for coding agents, chatbots, news monitoring, enrichments, voice agents, people search, and company search. The product pages also emphasize document, repo, and company-data retrieval workflows.

What kind of results does Exa return?

Search returns standard search results with URLs and page contents, plus AI summary and structured outputs. Deep is positioned for complex search tasks with structured outputs and web-grounded citations.

Quick Facts

Category
AI search API
Primary site
exa.ai
Main products
Search, Deep, Contents, Agent, Monitors, Exa Connect
Typical users
AI agents, developers, and teams building search or research workflows
Pricing
Free tier plus paid usage; enterprise and startup/education options are listed
Output style
Search results, structured outputs, highlights, and web-grounded citations