You.com’s ARI Enterprise crushes OpenAI in head-to-head tests, aims at deep research market

You.com has launched ARI Enterprise today, claiming its advanced research platform defeats OpenAI’s comparable offerings in 76% of head-to-head tests and achieves industry-leading accuracy on independent benchmarks.

The upgraded Advanced Research & Insights (ARI) platform scored 80% accuracy on the FRAMES benchmark — a research evaluation standard co-developed by Harvard, Google, and Meta — putting it ahead of offerings from major competitors.

“The number one thing is that it just goes into more depth,” Richard Socher, You.com’s CEO and former chief scientist at Salesforce, told me in an interview. “Our users are telling us things like, ‘Oh, this actually found things that I could not find online.’ So that depth combined with the accuracy, that’s sort of the power of it.”

AI search giants battle for dominance as deep research revolution accelerates

ARI Enterprise enters an increasingly competitive field where tech giants and AI startups are racing to dominate what some call the “new browser wars.” Google, OpenAI, Perplexity, Anthropic, and others are all developing their own deep research agents, which are rapidly becoming how people access and synthesize information across the web.

Unlike most competitors targeting general or multi-purpose use cases, You.com has deliberately focused on enterprise applications, particularly for financial analysts and management consultants who require extraordinarily thorough and accurate research.

“We didn’t see any change [from Google] and so we decided someone’s got to do it,” Socher told CNET in a previous interview about launching You.com in 2020. Now, with ARI Enterprise, the company is doubling down on its specialized focus.

“This sort of insane, untouchable monopoly that Google had for 20 years, those days are over,” Socher told Business Insider in March. “I don’t think any company will have such a strong monopoly for such a long time anymore because users are getting faster to switch and more eager to try out things.”

ARI Enterprise expands research capabilities with 400+ sources and enterprise data integration

ARI Enterprise isn’t just a simple update. You.com claims it offers 4x greater depth and breadth compared to the previous version, delivering twice as many unique citations per report. This increased comprehensiveness translates to 35% more insights and facts per research project, according to the company.

What truly distinguishes the platform, however, is its integration capabilities with enterprise data sources. While consumer-facing research tools generally rely solely on publicly available information, ARI Enterprise can now connect to internal corporate data repositories including SharePoint, OneDrive, Google Drive, and custom data sources.

“Problem of company internal data is we can really showcase our customers data to you,” Socher explained. “That is one of the biggest reasons why it’s ARI for enterprise now is we actually connect company internal data to ARI now so you can have internal like dozens or terabytes, petabytes of data, and we will search over all of that and make that data useful for you.”

In a demonstration, Socher showed how the system can handle complex queries like evaluating “strategic options for aerospace incumbents to enter the electrical vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) market for logistics and cargo transport.” The system aggregated information from over 440 sources, creating a comprehensive analysis that would typically require weeks of research by a team of consultants.

“When you go to 400 [sources] you start to find things that you would not have just stumbled upon by doing all your own Google searches,” Socher said. “Our 400th page isn’t like the 400th page that you get as a user scrolling on Google — we have a better search index.”

Perhaps the most attention-grabbing aspect of the announcement is You.com’s claim of substantially outperforming competitors in objective benchmarks.

The company evaluated ARI against the FRAMES benchmark (Factuality, Retrieval, And reasoning MEasurement Set), co-developed by researchers at Harvard, Google DeepMind, and Meta. Using this standard, which tests AI systems on fact retrieval, reasoning across constraints, and accurate synthesis, ARI achieved 80% accuracy — a 30% improvement over its beta version.

More provocatively, You.com created a new benchmark called DeepConsult specifically for business research scenarios. When comparing ARI against OpenAI’s Deep Research across 102 queries with 612 total tests, and using OpenAI’s own o3-mini model as judge, ARI won 76% of comparisons while OpenAI won only 14% (with the remainder being ties).

“This accuracy is kind of a constant chase,” Socher said. “When we first launched it, we were the only ones in the best in class, as you know, but then OpenAI came out right and they saw what we were doing, and then when they launched it, it was slightly better, so now we’re beating them again and everyone else.”

The company is also open-sourcing its benchmarking methodology and dataset, allowing others to verify their claims. “We’re going to publish all the details. Everyone can run the code and see it for themselves,” Socher emphasized.

From financial analysis to healthcare: How early adopters are using ARI Enterprise

Early adopters of ARI Enterprise include venture capital firms, consulting agencies, and research institutions.

“We now have customers like VestCap, a venture capital investment firm, who report that ARI has significantly improved their investment research process,” Socher noted. “We’re also working with communications consulting firms who tell us that ARI has enhanced their research capabilities and analytical workflows.”

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is also using the platform for complex research questions. In one demonstration, Socher showed how ARI could analyze the cost-effectiveness of treatments for sickle cell disease, gathering data from 226 sources and automatically running a Monte Carlo simulation to generate insights.

“If you’re working at the NIH, that would have taken you weeks to get to that kind of answer. It’s just insane,” Socher said.

A distinctive aspect of ARI Enterprise is its interactive approach, which keeps humans involved throughout the research process. Unlike fully automated systems, ARI is designed to collaborate with users, allowing them to refine research plans and guide the analysis.

“One unique feature that distinguishes us from competitors is our interactive approach,” Socher explained. “When you ask a complex question, ARI will respond with follow-up questions and then present a research plan, saying, ‘Here’s my approach.’ You can then intervene in that plan and redirect, saying, ‘Actually, I want to focus more on this specific aspect of my question.’”

This approach addresses a common criticism of AI research tools: that they can produce comprehensive but overly generic or misaligned results when the initial query is ambiguous or broad.

When asked if ARI will eventually replace analysts and researchers, Socher was emphatic that the technology is about augmentation, not replacement.

“I think we’re making analysts significantly more efficient, enabling them to produce consulting-level reports in a fraction of the time,” he said. “It’s similar to how the internet didn’t eliminate librarian jobs, but rather transformed them and created numerous new professional roles. We’re seeing the same pattern here.”

Instead, Socher sees a future where ARI and similar tools democratize access to high-quality research that was previously available only to those with significant resources.

“Right now, only senior executives can say, ‘I need a team to create a report to help me understand this market better.’ That typically costs between $10,000 and $100,000, requiring several consultants working for weeks,” he explained. “Now you can get comparable insights in 5-10 minutes. This won’t eliminate jobs, but it will change jobs, for sure.”

Founded in 2020 by Socher, who previously founded deep learning company MetaMind (acquired by Salesforce), You.com has positioned itself as a challenger to Google’s search dominance. The company has raised $99 million to date, including a $50 million Series B funding round announced in September 2024 led by Georgian, with participation from Nvidia and Salesforce Ventures.

You.com began as a search engine but has evolved into what Socher calls a “productivity engine that gives you answers, agents, and a path towards AGI.” The company claims to have served over 1 billion queries since launch and reports 500% revenue growth since January.

For enterprises interested in ARI, You.com offers a starter package for smaller teams, with pricing that Socher claims is “cheaper than doing anything with any of the competition.” The company emphasizes security and privacy, with “full zero data retention” policies and administrative controls that allow companies to restrict access to specific models or data sources.

The deep research race: How AI is redefining what’s possible in enterprise intelligence

You.com’s ARI Enterprise represents an inflection point in how businesses access and process information. By advancing beyond simple data retrieval to deliver comprehensive, verified analysis spanning hundreds of sources in minutes, it fundamentally changes the economics of specialized research.

“The higher level thing that we’re seeing here is that we’re enabling all our customers to level up their employees, to become managers of AI, to operate at higher levels of abstraction, to learn how to delegate,” Socher said.

In an era where information overload paralyzes decision-making, the battle isn’t just about which AI can find the most information—it’s about which can transform that information into actionable intelligence. For now, You.com believes the winning formula combines massive source processing with human guidance. The true disruption may not be in how these tools answer our questions, but in how they’re changing which questions we can afford to ask.