With the addition of Qwant and Ecosia, the alternatives have taken a major step towards digital independence. To accomplish this, they have released Staan, a new pan-European search index. This joint undertaking originated with the European Search Perspective (EUSP), a collaborative project. Its aim, as so frequently reiterated there, is to establish a European tech stack that stands totally apart from U.S. or Chinese ones.
Staan aims to bring a cheaper and more privacy-oriented option to the table compared to other popular search engines such as Google & Bing. Among these, the index is especially focused on chatbots, improving their ability to perform knowledge grounding with web searches. With this launch, EUSP wants to process about 50% of search queries in France by the end of the year. Shockingly, in Germany, their stated goal is to influence 33% of search queries.
EUSP is for real, addressing a critically important inflection point. In doing so, it takes on Europe’s increasing dependence on American and Chinese technology to power its digital infrastructure. Christian Kroll, CEO of Ecosia, underlined the urgency of the initiative. He noted that Europe remains at risk when it comes to its most critical digital assets. He highlighted the potential of their search index to facilitate deep research and AI summary features at a fraction of the cost compared to existing solutions.
“If you’re using ChatGPT or any other AI chatbot, they all do knowledge grounding with web search […] our index can power deep research and AI summary features. Google and Bing’s solutions are also pricey, and our index can offer power search features at a tenth of the cost,” – Christian Kroll, CEO of Ecosia.
The EUSP project is a response to the sharp realities of Europe today. Much of the continent’s search, cloud, and AI infrastructure is built on top of American Big Tech stacks. Joint venture founders say SearchCloud can build a better, more secure model for providing searches to users. They intend to do that by using powerful European privacy laws to their advantage.
Qwant hopes to use the new Staan index to make its platform better. This new addition will bring AI-based previews for search results. Ecosia also aims to roll out more AI capabilities in their services in the short-term. They are excited about strengthening their employee offerings with this technology!
The recent political developments in the U.S. have made the case for this initiative clear and urgent. European policymakers are in greater agreement on the dangers associated with dependency on foreign technology. Through these activities, the EUSP aims to defend areas of innovation such as journalism and climate technology. In doing so, it seeks to protect them from outside political and corporate interests.