AI Answers

Answers from AI assistants and the sources they cited: ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot and Google Gemini. Perplexity answers are paused: GET /search/ai/perplexity answers 403 FEATURE_NOT_AVAILABLE and is not charged. Each answer is generated live for your prompt, with no account history shaping it: the answer the engine's own users see.

Searlo is independent and not affiliated with OpenAI, Microsoft, Google or Perplexity.

Endpoint#

Credits: per answer: Gemini 4, ChatGPT 8, Copilot 8. A cached answer is billed at the full rate.

Parameters#

Structured output (schema) is not available on this endpoint yet. Do not send it: a JSON value is rejected with 400, and a bracketed schema[field]=type is dropped.

These engines take no location beyond gl: location and uule are ignored.

Response#

{  "success": true,  "searchParameters": { "q": "best crm for startups", "type": "ai", "engine": "chatgpt", "mode": "ui", "gl": "us", "hl": "en" },  "answer": "For most early-stage startups, a free tier is enough to begin with...",  "answerMarkdown": "For most early-stage startups, a **free tier** is enough to begin with...",  "citations": [    { "index": 1, "url": "https://www.example.com/best-crm-startups", "title": "The best CRMs for startups", "domain": "example.com" },    { "index": 2, "url": "https://blog.example.org/crm-guide", "title": "Choosing a CRM", "domain": "blog.example.org" }  ],  "sources": ["example.com", "blog.example.org"],  "citationPills": [],  "related": ["Which CRM is free for small teams?"],  "model": "",  "threadUrl": null,  "complete": true,  "via": "dom",  "fetchedAt": "2026-09-29T10:00:00.000Z",  "source": "searlo.tech(chatgpt)",  "cached": false}

Responses also set X-AI-Engine.

Latency, Caching and Variance#

• A live answer typically takes 10–30 seconds. Set a generous client timeout.
• Answers are non-deterministic: the same prompt can return different text and different citations from one run to the next. That variance is part of what you are measuring.
• A repeat of the same prompt (ignoring case and extra spaces) on the same engine, with the same gl, hl and mode, within about an hour is served from cache and billed at the full rate. Pass cache=false to force a new run.
• Identical requests in flight at the same moment, cache=false ones included, are merged into one run: every call is billed and all of them get the same answer. Parallel identical calls are not independent samples, so space your samples out.
• ChatGPT and Gemini show sources only when they searched the web, so citations can be empty on a valid answer.
• html=true always runs the engine (a snapshot is never cached), and a snapshot request is merged only with identical snapshot requests in flight.

Errors#

Failed calls are refunded.

curl "https://api.searlo.tech/api/v1/search/ai/chatgpt?q=best+crm+for+startups&gl=us&hl=en" \  -H "x-api-key: sk_your_api_key" \  --max-time 180 # Force a fresh run instead of the cached answer (billed)curl "https://api.searlo.tech/api/v1/search/ai/chatgpt?q=best+crm+for+startups&cache=false" \  -H "x-api-key: sk_your_api_key" \  --max-time 180

async function askAi(engine, prompt, { gl = "us", hl = "en", cache = true } = {}) {  const params = new URLSearchParams({ q: prompt, gl, hl, cache: String(cache) });  const res = await fetch(    `https://api.searlo.tech/api/v1/search/ai/${engine}?${params}`,    {      headers: { "x-api-key": process.env.SEARLO_API_KEY },      signal: AbortSignal.timeout(180_000), // live answers take 10-30 s, sometimes longer    }  );  if (res.status === 429) {    throw new Error(`${engine} at capacity, retry after ${res.headers.get("retry-after")}s`);  }  return res.json();} const answer = await askAi("copilot", "best crm for startups");console.log(answer.answer);console.log(answer.sources);       // unique cited domainsconsole.log(answer.citationPills); // Copilot only

import osimport requests def ask_ai(engine, prompt, gl="us", hl="en", cache=True):    r = requests.get(        f"https://api.searlo.tech/api/v1/search/ai/{engine}",        params={"q": prompt, "gl": gl, "hl": hl, "cache": str(cache).lower()},        headers={"x-api-key": os.environ["SEARLO_API_KEY"]},        timeout=180,    )    r.raise_for_status()    return r.json() # One sample per engine, run one after another rather than in parallelfor engine in ["chatgpt", "copilot", "gemini"]:    a = ask_ai(engine, "best crm for startups")    print(engine, "cached" if a["cached"] else "live", a["sources"])