Ask Jeeves is quietly shutting down after nearly three decades, having pioneered conversational web search long before ChatGPT and Gemini

Ask Jeeves has closed its doors after almost 30 years
He pioneered natural language web searches
Today, ChatGPT and Gemini work the same

With AI chatbots like ChatGPT and Gemini available, it’s now easy to perform web searches like “what are the best sights in Rome?” or “how to fix a leaking shower?”, but this natural language format was actually started almost 30 years ago – and by a search portal that just closed.

The portal was called Ask Jeeves, later renamed Ask.com, and was fully opened to the public on June 1, 1997. As reported by XDA Developers, what remained of Ask.com has now been shut down by its current owner, InterActiveCorp (IAC).

If you were online when the Internet was taking off, you’ll remember Ask Jeeves and its eponymous butler character, named after the valet Jeeves in PG Wodehouse’s stories. The idea was to ask questions and get answers from the growing amount of information available on the web, not just search for topics like “sports” or “movies.”

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At the time Ask Jeeves launched, Google was still a prototype university project and offered something truly different from the search engines and web directories of the time (including Yahoo, AltaVista, and Lycos).

“Deeply grateful”

(Image credit: Ask Jeeves / Ask.com)

Google of course completely changed the landscape of web search, and after its initial success, Ask Jeeves struggled. It was renamed Ask.com in February 2006 when Jeeves was removed from the search portal, although the butler character reappeared on the UK version of the site between 2009 and 2016.

IAC took over operations in 2005 and has now made the decision to close the search engine to “focus more” on other areas. The official end date for Ask Jeeves and Ask.com was May 1, 2026.

“We are deeply grateful to the brilliant engineers, designers and teams who have built and supported Ask over the decades,” says IAC. “And to you, the millions of users who have turned to us for answers in a rapidly changing world, thank you for your endless curiosity, loyalty and trust. The spirit of Jeeves lives on.”

Interestingly, as Google and other AI companies try to make web search a natural conversation, the site that first pioneered this approach is shutting down. Ask Jeeves was truly ahead of its time in 1997.

Google logo on black background next to text