Web Search
Let a workspace's agents search the public web, with Google's Enterprise grounding or Google Search in your direct messages with them, or with Tavily anywhere, each way switched on apart.
Agents often need a fact the workspace does not hold: a rate published this morning, a regulator's latest notice, what a company announced. Web Search lets the workspace's agents search the public web for it, and answer with the pages they found. Each way to search is switched on apart, so the workspace decides which search engines its agents may use, and where.
Open the Web Search page
- In the left sidebar, open the Settings tab.
- Under Extensions, select Web Search.
The page reads Let this workspace's agents search the web. Google's two ways work only in a person's own chat with an agent, as Google's terms require. A provider also works in channels and workflows.
The ways to search
The page lists each way to search under its group, each with its own switch:
| Group | Way | What it is | Where agents may use it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Enterprise grounding | Google's index for regulated industries. Google keeps no log of the searches. | Personal chats only. | |
| Google Search | Google's whole index, the freshest. Google keeps the searches 3 days. | Personal chats only. | |
| Providers | Tavily | Pages with an extract each, on this workspace's own Tavily connection. | Chats, channels and workflows. |
A new workspace starts with Enterprise grounding on. The others stay off until someone switches them on, and any of them can be switched off again.
Google's ways work in direct messages
Google's terms let its search results be shown only to the person who asked. So Enterprise grounding and Google Search work only in a person's own chat with an agent, their direct message with it, and never in a channel or a workflow. Elsewhere, agents search only with Tavily, once it is connected and on.
Google Search may leave the EU
Enterprise grounding runs in the EU. Google Search may process the workspace's searches outside it, so switching it on asks first: Switch on Google Search? explains that Google Search may process this workspace's web searches outside the EU. Enterprise grounding keeps them in the EU. Click Switch on to go ahead, or Cancel. See Hosting & data regions.
Tavily runs on your own key
Tavily is a search provider that works everywhere, channels and workflows included, on the workspace's own Tavily account. Until it is connected, its row shows Connect Tavily instead of a switch. Click it, add the workspace's Tavily key in the dialog that opens, then switch Tavily on. The key goes into a shared vault, because channels and workflows read keys from shared vaults only; see Vaults. It is the same connection as the Tavily connector in Agent Studio › Connectors.
What agents do with it
Once a way is on, agents search the web with the Spark Web Search tool when a question needs facts the workspace does not hold. The built-in agents have it; give it to an agent you made in its Tools section (see Tools).
- An agent picks the way: Enterprise grounding first in a direct message, Google Search when you ask for it or Enterprise grounding finds nothing, and Tavily in channels and workflows. Name a way in your message to have it used.
- It searches with public words only, never a client's name, a holding or an account.
- Under its answer, Sources lists the pages it used, each a link. After a search with Google's ways, a Search suggestions badge opens Google's own suggestions for the search.
- When you ask for a way this conversation does not have, the agent says so and which way it used instead.
For example, in your direct message with Spark: Find this week's interest rate decisions in the euro area, with a link to each source.
Limits
Searches with Google's ways count toward your organization's Google web searches per hour on Limits & Quotas: 100 an hour, unless NGT set another value for your organization. Past it, agents cannot search with Google's ways until the next hour, and say so: Your organization has used all of its Google web searches for this hour. Tavily runs on the workspace's own key and counts toward no NGT limit.
Who can use it
- Everyone in the workspace can open the Web Search page.
- Switching a way on or off needs a role that can edit Agents: by default the Editor and Administrator roles.
- Connecting Tavily needs a role that can add a connection to a shared vault.
See Teams & roles.
Where to go next
- Give an agent its tools: Tools
- Where model calls and searches run: Hosting & data regions
- The workspace's other extensions: Mailbox and Managed SFTP