Xayn Launches Web Search As It Should Be: Convenient, Controllable, and Private

Press Release

Dec 8

Written By Clara Herdeanu

Smart search alternative ushers in the new generation of user-friendly privacy tech

Xayn combines privacy, control over its algorithms, and convenience

Privacy tech, made in Europe, uses edge AI for accurate results

BERLIN, 8 December 2020 – Today, the German tech company Xayn launches its privacy-protecting search alternative. It empowers users to take back control over their data and their search results with a smooth, personalized, and transparent search experience. Xayn is based on the latest research in privacy-protecting AI and stands for transparency and ethical AI made in Europe.

Until now, search engines have provided either a profiled search experience or an unprofiled, but private, search. Xayn combines, for the first time, privacy with individualized, preference-driven personalization to provide relevant search results without the expense of the human right to privacy.

In addition, Xayn enables users to have control over its search algorithms. By swiping left or right on the results, users can influence what is shown to them and can teach the algorithms which results they want to see more of in the future. Users are put in the driver’s seat for the information that’s shown to them for specific search queries.

Private, transparent, and ethical AI from Europe

“I’ve always hated having to choose between privacy and convenience when searching online. I also found it creepy that I didn’t know why certain results were shown to me by the algorithms. Despite all that, I was still using established search giants, because I lost too much time finding what I was looking for with the privacy alternatives,” explains Leif Nissen Lundbæk, co-founder and CEO at Xayn. “I – like many other users – was simply stuck in this trade-off where the user is always the loser. That’s why my co-founders and I decided to build a search alternative with no compromises. Xayn combines privacy, convenience, and user control.”

Xayn provides digital privacy, transparency, and ethical AI from Europe – in line with the Digital Decade proclaimed by the EU Commission. The goal: To give users control over their personal data. Privacy is a key issue for people around the world: Current data from the 2019 Cyber Security Insights Report shows that 92% of surveyed online users worldwide have at least one significant concern about their data privacy. But even though more than two-thirds of those surveyed (67%) are more alarmed than ever about threats to their privacy, 64% still accept certain risks to their online privacy to make their lives more convenient. The fact that search queries make up around 30% of all global website traffic further underlines the need for a true privacy-protecting and convenient search alternative.

“Until now, the user experience depended mostly on how much data companies collected about their users. The more data was collected for profiling and personalization, the better the user experience was guaranteed to be. But in that approach, users lose their privacy. We want to change this because privacy is a fundamental human right,” explains Michael Huth, co-founder, Chief Technology Officer and Professor at Imperial College London. “This right is given up remarkably often if the service isn’t up to par. Therefore, privacy tech can only go mainstream if users are given alternatives that can compete with the incumbents on design and user experience. That’s why we created Xayn, a personalized, convenient search alternative that keeps data where it belongs – with the user.”

Xayn is built on the company’s platform XayNet which started as a research project four years ago and which has been open-sourced since then. XayNet brings the algorithms to the data and not vice versa. It combines federated analytics for privacy-preserving product analytics and training AI models over millions of devices with masked federated learning. Thus, the framework and search alternative show that the conflict between convenience and privacy can, in fact, be solved through technology.

Feature Highlights

Xayn aims to become a true alternative to established search engines by combining privacy, transparency, and convenience through cutting-edge AI. The European tech company wants to make privacy tech suitable for the mainstream by putting design at equal importance to privacy by design. Therefore, users can look forward to features such as:

Your AI: Turn your AI on for unique search results – as unique as you. Turn your AI off if you don’t want to experience personalized search results.
AI Swiping: Puts you in control with handy right or left swipe actions to approve or dislike specific search results. That way, you quickly find what you’re really looking for.
Intuitive Interface: Xayn’s interface is designed to make your life easier, including details such as a one-hand control and zero-click search for effortless interaction with the app.
Your Collections: You can collect, store, and sort through your favorite web content so that you won’t lose any information.
Your Home Screen: Your home screen is your own personal feed of the entire web, determined by you, and curated for you exclusively by Xayn. You stay in full control and get continuously inspired by the variety of the web.

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About Xayn

Xayn is pioneering next genAI for large organizations. The European startup builds secure, sovereign, and sustainable AI systems that leverage the power of language models at scale. Xayn develops its Retrieval Augmented Generative AI as energy efficient and privacy-protecting AI solution “Made In Germany”.

Born out of research at Oxford University and Imperial College London, the Berlin-based company is committed to European values of transparency, privacy, and sustainability and develops its AI system as open-source technology. Founded in 2017 by Dr Leif-Nissen Lundbæk, Professor Michael Huth and Felix Hahmann, Xayn’s academic vision remains, with a workforce comprised of more than 35% PhDs. The start-up has received investment funding of 19.5 million EURO from Global Brain Corporation, KDDI Open Innovation Fund, Earlybird, and Dominik Schiener.

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