Ask.com, the long-running search engine and question-and-answer service, officially closed on May 1, 2026, after parent company IAC announced it was discontinuing its search business.
A message posted to the Ask.com website confirmed the closure: “As IAC continues to sharpen its focus, we have made the decision to discontinue our search business, which includes Ask.com. After 25 years of answering the world’s questions, Ask.com officially closed on May 1, 2026.”
The service launched in 1996 under the name Ask Jeeves, built around answering conversational questions posed in natural language — an approach that may suggest an early parallel to today’s AI-powered chatbots. IAC acquired Ask Jeeves in 2005 and dropped “Jeeves” from the name shortly after. By 2010, the company had scaled back its search product to refocus on Q&A. That same year, IAC Chairman Barry Diller acknowledged at TechCrunch Disrupt that Ask.com was not competitive with Google and was not valued in IAC’s stock.
Despite the shutdown, the Ask.com website noted that “Jeeves’ spirit endures.”
For most of its 30-year history, Ask.com operated in the shadow of larger search products, particularly Google. Its closure marks the end of one of the earlier consumer search engines to emphasize natural language queries, a format that has since become central to how AI assistants process user input.
Source: TechCrunch