Ask.com, at the beginning based because the Y2K stalwart Ask Jeeves, is formally lifeless.
“As IAC continues to sharpen its center of attention, we have now made the verdict to discontinue our seek trade, which contains Ask.com. After 25 years of answering the sector’s questions, Ask.com formally closed on Might 1, 2026,” the homepage now reads.
Ask Jeeves used to be introduced in 1997 by way of the Berkeley-based duo Garrett Gruener and David Warthen, a yr prior to Google’s now-dominant seek engine debuted to the hundreds. On the time, Ask Jeeves’ herbal language processing, mixed with its personality-filled voice and branding, made it the go-to internet seek and solution engine for early web adopters. The web site’s butler mascot, Jeeves, modeled after the P.G. Wodehouse persona, made appearances on the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, keeping its personal towards different iconic company trademarks of the early 2000s.
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“Can one guy have the entire solutions?” If he has get admission to to all of the web, completely.
However whilst many nonetheless consult with the website by way of its Nineteen Nineties title, Ask.com hasn’t been “Ask Jeeves” for just about two decades, with the logo losing the latter phrase and its valet brand in 2006. The shift got here after a metamorphosis in possession, when the logo used to be transferred to American keeping corporate IAC. In 2009, Ask.com used to be dubbed the professional seek engine of NASCAR.
“We’re deeply thankful to the bright engineers, designers, and groups who constructed and supported Ask over the a long time. And to you — the hundreds of thousands of customers who grew to become to us for solutions in a hastily converting international — thanks to your unending interest, your loyalty, and your consider,” Ask.com reads. “Jeeves’ spirit endures.”
Amid an amazing shift towards generative AI-powered serps and a repositioning of AI brokers as the way forward for internet surfing, the lack of Ask.com appears like a real finish of the early dot-com generation. Goodbye Jeeves, hi AI.
