I’m using Brave Search in all browsers except Brave on Windows 11 stable release.
“Answer with AI” via the button on Brave Search (“Answer with AI” disabled in settings) returns an error message instead of an AI Summary. The same issue appears using Brave Search in any of my browsers. I don’t use Brave. This has been happening for about a week now.
Is this a bug? Or is Brave not allowing the on-demand feature when using browsers other than Brave due to a policy change? Maybe a subtle nudge to install Brave, or upgrade to paid Brave Search? 
@jaybird from what I just tested, it seems to be related to the settings as you mention. I’m not sure if this is temporary or perhaps an adjustment they are making. They had been getting a lot of feedback from people who were upset because they would get AI responses even when they had it disabled.
But I do see if you enable the Answer With AI that it will give answers. So at least know it’s related to the toggle.
cc: @Mattches
Indeed, but the point is I prefer to use the on-demand AI query instead of enabling “Answer with AI”.
I never experienced this, but if it’s related to the “Enable” toggle/switch, they over-corrected. In any case, “On demand” is broken here.
Not sure if I’m following the steps correctly but I’m not getting any error messages in Firefox when trying this. Here’s what I did:
- Go to search.brave.com in Firefox
- Enter search term, use
Answer with AI button
- Results page appears
- On the page, go to
Settings and toggle Answer with AI option “off”
- Enter another query, use the
Answer with AI option to search again
Results appear as expected:
@Mattches to reduce possibility of influence from Shields settings or extensions, I’ll run it through Chrome where I have no extensions or anything installed. Going to Brave Search, have it set so Answer With AI is off.
I type in a prompt and hit the Answer With AI button
AI doesn’t answer:
Now if I go in and turn on Answer With AI
When I go back and submit the same prompt and hit the Answer With AI button, it generates an answer.
Same steps seem to occur in Firefox and others as well:
Yeah I still don’t see this:
Not sure why we are getting different results here. Just tested in Chrome and see the same thing as shown above.
@Mattches weird. I just actually pulled out my iPhone and tested on that and same thing happens.
Does it on Safari as well
Doesn’t matter if on Wi-Fi or Mobile Data. Private tab does not make a difference. Only thing that is seeming to matter is if the Answer With AI is enabled/disabled.
But at least is replicating on multiple OS and browsers.
Will do some digging on this.
