Exa
The best search API for AI agents and web research
What is Exa?
Exa is a search API used by recruiting teams and AI agents for structured talent research at sub-180ms latency. Exa indexes 70M+ companies alongside specialized people, code, and news databases. Teams use Exa to power candidate research agents, enrich prospect data, and run company intelligence workflows. Exa ranks highest on the FRAMES accuracy benchmark at 54.4%, ahead of Perplexity and Brave, and offers SOC 2 Type II certification with zero data retention options.
What are Exa's key features?
Structured data extraction from 70M+ company database with CEO names, founding years, and company details
Sub-180ms latency with Exa Instant for real-time search results
Intelligent highlights that reduce token usage by up to 50% for LLM cost optimization
Dedicated search verticals for people, companies, and code with best-in-class accuracy
Website crawler and deep research API with zero data retention compliance options
How do staffing agencies use Exa?
- Sourcing candidates by researching their company backgrounds, recent news, and professional details through AI agents
- Enriching prospect data with company intelligence, executive information, and competitive landscape research
- Building talent pipelines by gathering structured company data and identifying growth-stage opportunities
Who is Exa best for?
- Best for AI-powered candidate research
- Best for company intelligence and prospect enrichment
- Best for in-house recruiting teams using AI agents
- Best for high-volume sourcing workflows
What are Exa's pros and cons?
Pros
- Highest accuracy across demanding benchmarks: 54.4% on FRAMES, outperforming Perplexity (44.5%) and Brave (21.6%)
- Fastest latency in industry with sub-180ms response times, enabling real-time sourcing workflows
- Token-efficient results reduce LLM costs by 50% through intelligent content highlighting
Cons
- Requires API integration and developer resources, not designed for non-technical recruiting users
- Pricing details not publicly disclosed on homepage; enterprise sales model may not suit small agencies
What are people saying about Exa?
Developer feedback highlights Exa's semantic search accuracy and sub-180ms latency versus traditional keyword APIs. One engineer cited returning on-topic results over 90% of the time across 500 test queries where Google's API missed. Review volume is small and concentrated in engineering use cases, not yet aggregated in recruiting-focused review platforms.
Source: WEB · Updated April 22, 2026
Implementation support
Need help implementing Exa for your business?
We've set up Exa inside recruiting teams across 110+ engagements. Book a call to map it against your stack, data, and workflows.
Frequently asked questions about Exa
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