Google search faces new challenges: Anthropic introduces web search function to its API. Star AI company Anthropic announced the launch of web search function for its API on the 8th local time of this month, which means that Claude AI can access the latest information on the Internet, bringing new pressure to the Google search engine, which was born in the traditional search era. Developers leveraging the Anthropic API can now enable web search tools when sending requests, broadening Claude's knowledge with real-world, current data. This also means developers can build Claude-powered AI applications/agents that provide the latest insights. When Claude receives a request for up-to-date information or expertise, he uses his reasoning skills to determine whether using a web search would help provide a more accurate answer. If the search behavior is helpful, Claude will conduct a targeted search query, retrieve relevant results, analyze them for key information, and provide comprehensive answers with source material references. In addition, Claude can perform agent operations: conducting simple research and generating more comprehensive answers by using previous results to guide subsequent queries in a progressive search manner. Anthropic gives four major application scenarios for the API web search function: Financial services: Build AI agents that analyze real-time stock prices, market trends, and regulatory updates; Legal research: Create tools that can access the latest court decisions, regulatory changes, and legal news; Developer tools: Enable Claude to refer to the latest API documentation, GitHub releases, and technology updates; Productivity: Build agents that contain the latest company reports, competitive intelligence, or industry research