Brave AI Mode API | Privacy-Search Intelligence

Track Brave Search's AI Mode answers for any query and get the AI-generated answer, its cited sources, and the supporting web results as structured JSON. Brave is the privacy-first search engine, and its AI Mode answers reflect a different index and a different audience than mainstream search. Use this API to monitor what Brave's AI tells users about your brand, product, or topic, and which sources it cites.

Built for privacy-tech, infosec, and journalism: send one query or many, and get one clean row per query with the answer as markdown, the structured text blocks, the cited references, and the underlying web results.

What you get

One row per query:

• ai_mode_present: whether Brave returned an AI Mode answer
• markdown: the full answer as markdown
• text_blocks: the structured content blocks (headings, paragraphs, lists)
• references: the cited sources, each with index, title, and link
• web_results: the supporting web results behind the answer, with title, link, snippet, source, and date
• related_questions: follow-up questions Brave associates with the answer

Use cases

• Monitor what Brave's AI Mode says about your brand or product
• Compare Brave's cited sources against other engines for AEO research
• Track the privacy-search narrative on security, crypto, and policy topics
• Give an AI agent a privacy-first answer plus its sources in one call
• Audit answer drift over time by re-running key queries on a schedule

Input

Field	Type	Description
query	string	A single query, e.g. what is quantum computing. Provide this, queries, or both.
queries	array of strings	A batch of queries to resolve in one run. Merged with query and de-duplicated.
country	string	Optional two-letter country code, e.g. us, gb, de. Default us.
language	string	Optional two-letter language code, e.g. en, es, de. Default en.

Example input

{
  "query": "what is quantum computing",
  "country": "us",
  "language": "en"
}

Sample output

{
  "result_type": "ai_mode",
  "query": "what is quantum computing",
  "country": "us",
  "language": "en",
  "ai_mode_present": true,
  "markdown": "Quantum computing is a type of computation that ...",
  "text_blocks": [
    { "type": "heading", "snippet": "What is quantum computing?" },
    { "type": "paragraph", "snippet": "Quantum computing uses qubits ..." }
  ],
  "references": [
    { "index": 1, "title": "Quantum computing - Wikipedia", "link": "https://en.wikipedia.org/..." }
  ],
  "web_results": [
    { "title": "Quantum computing explained", "link": "https://example.com/...", "snippet": "...", "source": "example.com" }
  ]
}

Pricing

Pay per query: a flat $0.015 per query resolved, whether or not an AI Mode answer is shown (the lookup runs either way). No setup fee, no per-run fee. Batch many queries in one run.

How to get started

1. Open Brave AI Mode API on the Apify Store.
2. Enter a query (or a queries list of brand or topic terms).
3. Run the Actor and read the AI Mode answer, its sources, and web results from the dataset.
4. Export as JSON, CSV, or Excel, or pull it from the API. Schedule it to track changes.

Prefer code? See johnvc's GitHub for setup guides and code examples.

Run from the API

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/johnvc~brave-ai-mode-api/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"query":"what is quantum computing","country":"us"}'

🔌 Use this API from Claude (MCP)

This Actor is compatible with the Model Context Protocol (MCP), so AI agents can call it as a tool. Add it through the hosted Apify MCP server using this Actor-specific URL:

https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=actors,docs,johnvc/brave-ai-mode-api

If you run agents from Claude Code (free trial) or Claude Cowork (free trial), add the Apify MCP server and ask it to "check what Brave AI Mode says about our product across these queries."

Setup walkthrough:

Apify MCP integration docs: https://docs.apify.com/platform/integrations/mcp

MCP setup, step by step

Visual setup guides for each client (source and more assets: ApifyPublicData on GitHub):

Claude Cowork Desktop (free trial)

Claude Code (free trial)

Claude (website)

Cursor

ChatGPT

FAQ

What is Brave AI Mode? It is the AI-generated answer Brave Search produces for many queries, with cited sources and supporting web results. This API returns that answer and its sources as structured data.

Do I get charged if no answer is shown? Yes, a flat per-query fee, because the lookup runs either way. The row will have ai_mode_present: false and a short note.

Why Brave specifically? Brave is privacy-first and uses an independent index, so its AI answers and cited sources can differ from mainstream engines. That makes it valuable for AEO research and privacy-aware audiences.

Can I monitor many terms at once? Yes. Pass a queries list; each is resolved independently and returned as its own row.

Featured Tasks

Ready-to-run examples that show this API solving a specific problem. Each opens its own setup so you can run it on your account in one click.

• Track Brand Mentions in Brave AI Search Answers - monitor whether your brand appears in Brave's AI Mode answers across a list of queries, with the ai_mode_present flag, answer markdown, and cited references.
• Brave Search API Alternative: AI Answers as JSON - get Brave's AI Mode answer and cited references for a query as structured JSON, with no Brave API key.
• Brave Search AI for Claude via MCP, No API Key - use Brave's AI Mode answer as a tool in Claude through MCP, returning the answer markdown and cited references.

Last Updated: 2026.06.15