Microsoft launches Web IQ, a search API built for AI agents

Microsoft launched Microsoft Web IQ, a search API designed specifically for AI agents. Unlike traditional search engines, Web IQ helps AI tools efficiently access the internet to retrieve contextual information, web pages, news, images, and videos for grounding.

Jordi Ribas, Microsoft's president of Search and AI, said Web IQ is rebuilt from the ground up based on two decades of Bing experience, optimized for AI agents. While humans need ranked search results, AI agents require compact, information-rich pages to minimize token usage.

Ribas noted that Web IQ offers industry-leading search quality, token efficiency, and low latency, with 95% of requests responding within 165 milliseconds—about 2.5 times faster than competitors. The API now powers Microsoft Copilot and OpenAI's ChatGPT, with more adopters expected.