Date: July 29, 2025 We’re excited to introduce Exa Fast - the fastest search API in the world. Exa Fast uses streamlined versions of our neural and keyword with p50 latency below 425ms.
Fast search is available immediately on all API plans. Try Fast search in the dashboard →

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What’s New

The Fast search type provides:
  • Speed: p50 latency below 425ms - that’s 30% faster than Brave and Google Serp
  • Exa Index: Uses the same index of high quality content as our neural search
  • Customization: Full compatibility with all the same parameters as our other search types
Fast search is ideal for:
  1. Fast web grounding: Integrate real-time web information into responses without sacrificing speed and impacting user experience
  2. Agentic workflows: AI agents like deep research that use dozens or hundreds of search calls where milliseconds add up
  3. Low-latency AI products: Latency-sensitive applications like AI voice companions where every millisecond matters
Using Fast search is simple - just add type="fast" to your search requests: 
result = exa.search_and_contents(
    "latest AI news",
    type="fast",
    livecrawl="never",
)

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Options That Impact Latency

While Fast search is optimized for speed, certain options can increase response times:
  • Live crawling: Fetching content live requires real-time web requests. Set livecrawl="never" to use cached content and maintain optimal speed.
  • AI summaries: Requesting AI-generated summaries requires LLM processing, which adds significant latency to your requests.
  • Complex date filters: Using wide date ranges or multiple date constraints requires additional filtering that can slow down results.
  • Include/exclude text: Text-based content filtering requires scanning through results, which impacts response times.
  • Subpages: Including subpages in your search requires additional processing and can significantly increase latency.
For the fastest possible performance, use Fast search with minimal parameters and rely on cached content.