A system that directly answers user questions rather than returning a list of links. Examples include Perplexity, ChatGPT with search, and Google's AI Overviews. Unlike traditional search engines that rank web pages, answer engines synthesize information into a single response.
She switched from Google to an answer engine for research questions—getting a synthesized answer was faster than clicking through ten blue links.
Why make one model do everything? Orchestration frameworks coordinate multiple models and tools—summarizers, reasoners, calculators, databases. Instead of a single machine worker, it's more like a team of junior coworkers—managed by a leader who decides who does what. It’s more resilient and more scalable, though it adds complexity.
