Three of them already work. We think ours is better, and this page says plainly where it is not.
Three of them already work. The real questions are what your data is still worth a year after you buy it, and whether whoever did the work ever gets paid again.
What you get
Search APIs for agents
Whatever was already free on the open web.
A licensed corpus
One deep corpus, checked by people.
Roll your own
Exactly what you loaded, and nothing more.
Inflectiv
A dataset somebody else keeps current, that your agent can also write to.
Who keeps it current
Search APIs for agents
Nobody. The crawler moves on.
A licensed corpus
The vendor, until you buy the next licence.
Roll your own
You, forever.
Inflectiv
The owner, who is paid every time it is asked.
What the source earns
Search APIs for agents
Nothing.
A licensed corpus
One payment, at signature.
Roll your own
You are the source.
Inflectiv
A share of every question, for as long as it keeps being asked.
A year later
Search APIs for agents
The same web, crawled again.
A licensed corpus
A year out of date.
Roll your own
As current as the time you put into it.
Inflectiv
It answers more than it did, because the agents using it left it better.
Private or permissioned data
Search APIs for agents
It cannot carry any.
A licensed corpus
Only what was licensed.
Roll your own
Yours, if you host it yourself.
Inflectiv
Encrypted with Seal, and you set on chain who may query it.
| Search APIs for agentsExa, Parallel, Tavily | A licensed corpusvLex, Norm Ai | Roll your ownPinecone and your pipeline | Inflectivyou are here | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| What you get | Whatever was already free on the open web. | One deep corpus, checked by people. | Exactly what you loaded, and nothing more. | A dataset somebody else keeps current, that your agent can also write to. |
| Who keeps it current | Nobody. The crawler moves on. | The vendor, until you buy the next licence. | You, forever. | The owner, who is paid every time it is asked. |
| What the source earns | Nothing. | One payment, at signature. | You are the source. | A share of every question, for as long as it keeps being asked. |
| A year later | The same web, crawled again. | A year out of date. | As current as the time you put into it. | It answers more than it did, because the agents using it left it better. |
| Private or permissioned data | It cannot carry any. | Only what was licensed. | Yours, if you host it yourself. | Encrypted with Seal, and you set on chain who may query it. |
A comparison table that finds in our favour on every row is not a comparison. These are the cases where one of the other three is the right answer.
Worth being clear about
Everyone serious returns sources. What is ours is where the citation points: at a record in a dataset whose owner is paid for it, and which gets better the more it is cited.
Every option here answers a question today. Only one of them answers more next year than it does this morning, because the agents using it left it better.