Capabilities · Last updated April 13, 2026
Grounded Web Search
for AI agents
AnyCap grounded web search gives agents citation-backed answers through one CLI. Instead of assembling a separate retrieval pipeline and answer layer, teams can ask a question, get a synthesized response, and preserve source attribution in the same runtime. That makes grounded search especially useful for research, audit, and freshness-sensitive agent workflows.
Agents do not need another disconnected tool.
They need the capability inside the workflow.
AnyCap turns capability access into agent action.
The short answer
Use grounded web search when an agent needs a direct answer with visible source backing, not just a set of pages to inspect.
01
Grounded search returns answer-ready synthesis instead of only a raw list of URLs.
02
Citations stay visible for research, audit, and freshness-sensitive workflows.
03
The same AnyCap runtime can move from grounded answers into crawl, writing, or reporting.
How grounded search fits an AnyCap workflow
01 / Ask
The agent sends a freshness-sensitive question through AnyCap search with a prompt.
02 / Ground
AnyCap returns a synthesized answer with source metadata so the agent can preserve attribution.
03 / Decide
The answer can feed a research memo, audit, comparison, report, or follow-up crawl step.
CLI usage
Grounded question answering
anycap search --prompt "What are the latest changes in Go 1.25?"
Comparison with citations
anycap search --prompt "Compare React vs Vue in terms of performance"
Extract the answer text
anycap search --prompt "What is context engineering?" | jq -r '.data.content'
List cited sources
anycap search --prompt "latest Go releases" | jq -r '.data.search_metadata.sources[] | "\(.title): \(.uri)"'
When agents need grounded web search
Use case 1
Answer research questions when the workflow needs synthesized output instead of a raw result list.
Use case 2
Return citations and source attribution for research, reporting, and high-trust workflows.
Use case 3
Use grounded search inside an agent loop without hand-building retrieval plus answer synthesis.
Use case 4
Handle freshness-sensitive questions where teams need both an answer and visible source backing.
Related pages
Related capability
Web Search
Start there when the workflow needs retrieval and result selection before synthesis.
Related capability
Web Crawl
Use crawl when the source URL is known and the workflow only needs the page content.
Pricing
Pricing
Compare standard search and grounded search credit costs on the pricing page.
FAQ
What does grounded web search let agents do?
It lets agents ask a question and receive a synthesized answer grounded in live web search results with citations. That is different from standard search, which returns a list of pages for the agent to inspect itself.
What search language should this page target?
The best supporting language is grounded web search, AI grounded search, search with citations, and grounded search API. These phrases map better to the actual job than a generic search label.
When should teams prefer grounded search over standard web search?
Use grounded search when the agent needs a direct answer with citations. Use standard web search when the agent needs to inspect a result set, choose sources, or perform downstream extraction itself.
Why is this valuable for AI agents specifically?
Because grounded search collapses retrieval and answer generation into a single runtime step while preserving source attribution. That is a strong fit for research, audit, and decision-support workflows.
Let your agent answer with sources.
Use grounded search when the workflow needs both a concise answer and the source trail behind it.