What is Ecosia?
Ecosia is an AI search engine that plants trees with its search profits. It generates AI Overviews that summarize search results and link reliable sources above the page. It also offers AI Chat, a conversational AI feature that delivers full answers instead of a list of links. The AI search engine routes complex questions to AI Chat automatically when a query needs more than a quick link. Standard search results come from Microsoft Bing or Google. Image results pull from Tripadvisor or Wikimedia. Ecosia directs 100% of its profits toward climate action, mostly tree planting projects worldwide.
Features & Benefits
- AI Overviews: Summarize the most relevant search results and surface reliable sources above the standard results page.
- Auto-Routing to AI Chat: Detect complex or detailed queries and redirect them from search results to AI Chat automatically.
- AI Chat: Deliver full conversational answers to questions, letting you compare concepts, plan trips, or explore topics in depth. Upload documents, spreadsheets, and images so the AI can summarize, analyze, or answer questions about the content. Save past conversations to your Ecosia account so you can revisit them across devices. Switch between a mode that pulls live web sources, a step-by-step tutoring mode, and a mode that takes more time to reason through complex questions.
- AI-Free Search Setting: Turn off AI Overviews, AI Chat, and auto-routing to get a traditional search experience.
- Tree Planting Funding: Direct 100% of profits toward climate projects, mostly tree planting in biodiversity hotspots.
- Energy-Efficient AI Models: Run smaller AI models for both AI Overviews and AI Chat to lower the energy cost of each query.
- Impact Tracking: Track personal contributions to tree planting and climate funding through a user profile.
- Feedback Controls: Flag wrong or harmful AI responses directly inside AI Chat or AI Overviews.
What can Ecosia do?
- search the web with AI
- summarize search results with AI
- chat with an AI about any topic
- upload documents for AI analysis
- upload images for AI analysis
- plan a trip with AI
- compare concepts in a chat
- get step by step explanations
- pull AI answers from live web sources
- fund climate action through searches
- generate AI powered search answers
- reduce search related energy use
Real-World Applications
A late-night research session into a tricky topic can shift from scanning links to asking direct questions through AI Chat. Conversations stay private since searches never get tied to a cross-platform profile, which can matter when researching health symptoms or financial questions before a doctor visit or budgeting meeting.
Planning a multi-city trip often means juggling dates, budgets, and routes. AI Chat can hold that conversation in one place while suggesting next steps and pulling current details through its web source mode. The AI search engine handles this kind of back-and-forth planning without losing context between questions.
Reviewing a long contract or report might call for uploading the document into AI Chat to get key points pulled out without reading every page. A freelancer comparing two client proposals could upload both PDFs and ask AI Chat to highlight differences in scope or payment terms.
A student studying for an exam may switch on a step-by-step mode in AI Chat to work through a concept instead of getting a flat answer. Someone troubleshooting a recipe substitution or a home repair question might prefer AI Overviews for a quick summary instead of clicking through several sites. Throughout all of this, the AI search engine keeps tree planting funded by routing search profits into climate projects, so everyday searches and AI questions carry an environmental impact alongside their practical use.
