Yahoo Scout exits beta and brings AI answers into Yahoo Search

Yahoo said on November 10 that its Scout AI search service had left beta and become part of a rebuilt Yahoo Search. The redesign, called Pivot Search, lets people switch between web results and an AI answer without entering their query again. Yahoo said Scout had delivered more than three billion answers since the beta began in January.

The new search experience is available on desktop and mobile browsers in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and Switzerland. South Korea was absent from Yahoo’s availability list. Yahoo announced the Scout app for iOS and Android in the United States. During the January beta, U.S. users could already reach Scout on its own website or through the Yahoo Search app. The redesign brings the same query into both views of the main search experience.

Switching views keeps the original query

Yahoo’s product team says searches for a website, a team or a stock ticker can lead straight to familiar links or information panels. A comparison or a question about how to do something can prompt the search box to offer a Scout answer. Some web results show a short AI summary, while the Scout tab offers a fuller answer with links to its sources. The query carries over when a user changes tabs.

People can refine a Scout answer by asking another question in the same conversation. Yahoo’s help center says a Yahoo account is required to see a list of previous threads. Scout Memories, which Yahoo described in the announcement, can use details from past activity to personalize later answers. Yahoo says users can see or delete those memories and turn the feature off. The privacy notice says clearing history in one Yahoo service can leave the history in another visible. Yahoo may also retain limited records for purposes such as security and legal compliance.

Source links give readers a way to trace an answer to its supporting material. Yahoo’s help center says Scout can make mistakes and points readers to the original pages for verification. Its privacy notice says Scout draws from Yahoo material, licensed sources and the open web. Yahoo’s three billion figure counts answers it delivered during beta. The launch announcement supplied no figure for visits generated by those links after the redesign.

Voice and photo questions in the U.S. app

Yahoo’s mobile guide lists voice questions, spoken replies and the option to attach a photo from the camera or photo library. Yahoo lists three voices for spoken answers. Apple’s U.S. listing described Scout as the new name for the existing Yahoo Search app. The Google Play link in Yahoo’s announcement still displayed the Yahoo Search name when checked.

Questions beside stock charts and news stories

On Yahoo Finance, a Scout summary and suggested questions can appear beneath a stock chart. Selecting one opens an answer beside the page, and Yahoo’s product team describes similar summaries for portfolios and watchlists. Yahoo News puts a chat window inside the article page. Yahoo Sports suggests questions related to the story a reader has open.

Yahoo had already put a Scout-powered question tool on select Finance pages and introduced an NBA Draft assistant in June. The November expansion puts Scout into the main search experience and adds more places to ask about the page a user is viewing. Yahoo is still testing suggested questions on its homepage, and its announcement gave no date for Scout in Yahoo Shopping.

Yahoo also said U.S. desktop users could select Scout in Firefox’s AI sidebar. That gives them a separate entry point from the search tabs and article windows, with the answer and its source links beside the page they already have open.