Exa Introduced Exa Fast - The Fastest Search API in the World

Exa, an API Developer for LLM Search, led by Will Bryk(CEO), Jeff Wang(Co-Founder), and others, introduced Exa Fast, the fastest search API in the world. 

Exa Fast outperformed Brave and Google SERP scrapers by over 30% in speed. Since most search APIs rely on these tools under the hood, their higher latencies excluded them from the comparison. Benchmarks were run on thousands of random queries from a datacenter in us-west-1, with Exa's network latency averaging around 50ms.

Exa is designed for AI systems that search the web, where low latency is critical. In LLM-integrated search (like SearchGPT or Perplexity), fast responses ensure the combined search + LLM experience stays smooth. AI agents running multi-step workflows can save seconds with faster search—50 calls at 200ms faster each adds up quickly. For latency-sensitive products like voice AI companions, web search remains a major bottleneck, especially as LLMs get faster. Exa helps close that gap.

Building the fastest search API requires owning the entire stack—not wrapping Google. Many search APIs rely on headless browsers that query Google, resulting in 700ms+ P50 latency. Exa took a different path: crawling the web, training custom search models, and developing a proprietary vector database. Years of deep infrastructure work now enable full control over performance, allowing optimization for ultra-low latency and purpose-built AI integration.