Fall 2026
Software Engineer – Intern
Updated on 8/28/2026
Exa
51-200 employees
AI-driven search API for real-time data
Compensation Overview
$48.08 - $72.12/hr
H1B Sponsorship Available
San Francisco, CA, USA
In Person
Interns must work full time in San Francisco; remote and part-time arrangements are not accepted.
Bachelor's
 Software Engineering (1) |
|---|
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- Currently pursuing a degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Physics, or a related technical field.
- Willing to take off a semester to work full time in San Francisco.
- Experience with a high-performance programming language such as C++ or Rust.
- Ability to code technically difficult or interesting projects.
- Recreate Google-level keyword search over 10 billion pages in one month.
- Build a state-of-the-art crawling system that works optimally for any website.
- Build a custom vector database that runs over one billion vectors in under 100 milliseconds.
Exa.ai builds an AI-driven search API that returns high-quality, real-time data from the web for use in AI training and applications. The API lets developers fetch the best data with just a few lines of code, and customers access it via a subscription plan that includes 1000 free searches per month with additional paid plans. This approach differs from traditional search by focusing on data quality and relevance for AI needs rather than keyword-based results, enabling scalable data delivery for models and apps. The company aims to grow its search product and establish itself as the data layer for AI applications, backed by its Series A funding from Lightspeed Venture Partners, Nvidia, and Y Combinator.
Company Size
51-200
Company Stage
Series C
Total Funding
$362.1M
Headquarters
San Francisco, California
Founded
2021
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See people who can refer or advise you
Simplify's Take
What believers are saying
- Exa raised $250 million at a $2.2 billion valuation in May 2026.
- Mozilla's August 18, 2026 partnership puts Exa inside Firefox for U.S. and Canada users.
- Exa claims 500 billion crawled URLs and over 5,000 customers, signaling real traction.
What critics are saying
- Google Search and ChatGPT still dominate interface control, crushing standalone search demand.
- Parallel, Tavily, Brave, and Firecrawl target Exa's API buyers with cheaper alternatives.
- A single platform failure or ranking regression breaks Mozilla, Google, and 5,000 customer workflows.
What makes Exa unique
- Exa powers Firefox Smart Window and Quick Answers, shipping source-backed search at browser scale.
- Google integrated Exa for Gemini grounding in April 2026, validating its retrieval stack.
- Exa Connect blends public web search with ZoomInfo, Crunchbase, and Similarweb data.
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Benefits
Remote Work Options
401(k) Retirement Plan
401(k) Company Match
Health Insurance
Growth & Insights and Company News
6 month growth
↓ -2%1 year growth
↓ -2%2 year growth
↑ 5%Nvidia in talks to invest in Perplexity at more than $30 billion valuation. The reported equity investment would mark another Nvidia bet on the AI search startup as Perplexity expands its agent-focused business. Prefer on Google Nvidia is reportedly in discussions to invest in Perplexity as part of an equity funding round that could value the AI search startup at more than $30 billion, according to The Information, which cited people familiar with the matter. If completed at that valuation, the round would increase Perplexity's value by more than 50% from its previous financing. Perplexity last raised $200 million at a $20 billion valuation in September 2025. The potential investment would extend Nvidia's existing relationship with the company and further connect the chipmaker with one of the most prominent startups developing AI-powered search and agent technology. Perplexity's rapid valuation growth. Founded in August 2022 by Aravind Srinivas, Denis Yarats, Johnny Ho and Andy Konwinski, Perplexity initially raised $73.6 million at a $520 million valuation in January 2024. The company then secured $63 million at a $1.04 billion valuation in March 2024, reaching unicorn status. Its subsequent funding rounds accelerated the increase in valuation. Perplexity raised $500 million at a $9 billion valuation in late 2024, followed by another $500 million round at $14 billion in May 2025. A $100 million extension in July 2025 lifted its valuation to $18 billion, with Nvidia, SoftBank Vision Fund 2, NEA and IVP among the participating investors. The company then raised $200 million at $20 billion in September 2025 and another round at a $23 billion valuation in January 2026. The latest proposed financing would put Perplexity above $30 billion, representing a substantial increase from the roughly $1 billion valuation it reached in early 2024. Nvidia deepens its Perplexity relationship. The potential investment would not be Nvidia's first financial commitment to Perplexity. Nvidia participated in Perplexity's Series B in January 2024, returned for its March 2024 financing and joined the July 2025 extension. According to The Information, Nvidia had also considered a technology licensing arrangement and hiring some Perplexity employees before discussions shifted toward a direct equity investment. Discover more For Nvidia, an investment would provide continued exposure to an AI application that relies heavily on computing infrastructure while giving the chipmaker a closer relationship with a company operating at the intersection of AI search and autonomous agents. AI agents expand the search market. Perplexity's revenue growth has increasingly been linked to Perplexity Computer, its cloud-based AI agent designed to automate multi-step professional tasks. The company's broader strategy reflects a shift in AI search from simply retrieving information for human users toward systems capable of finding information and taking actions on behalf of AI agents and users. Other companies are pursuing similar opportunities. Exa is developing search infrastructure specifically for AI agents rather than traditional human-facing search. Nvidia's NVentures joined Benchmark, Lightspeed and Y Combinator in Exa's $85 million Series B at a $700 million valuation in 2025. Exa later raised $250 million at a $2.2 billion valuation in May 2026. Perplexity faces increasing competition. Perplexity is competing against established technology companies with significant distribution advantages, including Google and OpenAI, while also facing newer competitors developing infrastructure specifically for AI agents. Companies such as Exa and You.com are targeting parts of the emerging agent-driven search market that have become increasingly important as AI systems take on more complex tasks. Perplexity's annualised revenue is reportedly around $750 million. At a valuation above $30 billion, that would imply a price-to-sales multiple approaching 40 times, a level that could face greater scrutiny if the company eventually pursues a public listing. CEO Aravind Srinivas has previously discussed the possibility of an IPO within the next few years, making the relationship between Perplexity's private valuation, revenue growth and future public-market expectations increasingly relevant. Whether Perplexity becomes a core search layer for AI agents or remains one of several well-funded companies competing to define the category remains uncertain. The reported Nvidia investment would nevertheless strengthen the startup's position as it continues expanding its AI search and agent business.
Claude Academy launch, ChatGPT imessage & more AI News. Anthropic just dropped 355 free learning resources in one place - and that's only the beginning of today's AI news. Welcome to AI News in a Minute, brought to you by Tavus, the future of interactive video. I'm Jerome W Dewald. This is Friday, August 21, 2026. Anthropic launched The Claude Academy, a free hub with 355 resources covering AI fluency, API development, Model Context Protocol, and Claude Code - all in one place, ahead of a rumored IPO filing. OpenAI's new Apple Messages plugin lets ChatGPT on Mac read, search, and send iMessages - a major step in OpenAI's deep integration into Apple's enterprise and consumer ecosystem. Reddit's share of ChatGPT Search citations cratered 86% in just four days starting August 14 - dropping from around 4% to 0.5% - raising serious questions about OpenAI's data deal with Reddit. Mozilla's Firefox and AI search startup Exa launched Smart Window - an AI browser mode that organizes tabs, searches the live web, and stores all your data locally for maximum privacy. A WSJ investigation found nine major tech companies are carrying $3 trillion in off-balance-sheet AI spending commitments - data-center leases and chip deals invisible to standard investor analysis. That was your AI News in a Minute with Jerome W Dewald. Stay ahead in the AI race! Leave your thoughts about Claude Academy's impact in the comments, give this video a like, and hit subscribe so you don't miss tomorrow's AI News in a Minute!
Mozilla evolves Smart Window in Firefox ahead of general release. Mozilla announced several new features for Smart Windows in Firefox today and it has even bigger plans for the future. "Smart Window is Firefox's privacy-first, AI-powered browsing experience designed to help people finish what they start online," the Mozilla announcement explains. "It works with the context you choose to share, such as your open tabs and relevant browsing history, so you can get back to what you were doing without retracing your steps." Mozilla announced Smart Window (originally called AI Window) last November, and it's been refining this optional new way to access AI capabilities in Firefox ever since. As Mozilla head of Firefox Ajit Varna told me this past March, Smart Windows works like the Firefox Private Window feature in that it's a "one-way door to AI" that lets you access AI functionality without giving your browser context to the AI. Smart Window has been in beta since the beginning of the summer, and now Mozilla is adding some new features based on feedback. These include: Get answers without leaving the page. Mozilla is partnering with Exa, the makers of a web search service that's built for the AI era, to power search in Smart Window in Firefox on the desktop and in Quick Answers in Firefox on the iPhone and iPad, providing users with a way to get current, source-backed answers without leaving the page they're viewing. Suggested tab groups. Smart Window will now suggests groups for related tabs, and it can spot and remove duplicate tabs with a single click. Visual previews. Smart Window will now show visual previews of pages in your browsing history so you can more easily find the exact page you wish to return to. In the near future, Mozilla will add other features to Smart Window, including surfacing recent browsing activities and related tabs and history so you can pick up where you left off, and a way for Smart Window to help you fill out web forms without needing to re-enter the same information over and over again. Smart Window is optional, and the user can choose to use it or not, pick the browsing context it can use to help with tasks, and even pick the AI model, and this is all handled in the new AI controls interface in Firefox settings. The feature is still in beta, however, and available to Firefox users in English in the U.S. and Canada. You can learn more and join the waitlist if it's not available in your locale on the Firefox website. Community Guidelines Thurrott maintain the community forums so its readers have access to rich conversations and can discuss their thoughts and opinions on technology topics of interest. By participating in the conversations on this website, you agree to follow the rules to create a civil place for discussion. There are currently no comments available Post a comment. Fields marked with * are required
Firefox's AI window gets new features meant to help you stay on task and organized. You have to opt into using the browser if you want these features. Senior writer Zach began writing for CNET in November, 2021 after writing for a broadcast news station in his hometown, Cincinnati, for five years... Read full bio August 18, 2026, 9:00 am ET Firefox's AI-integrated Smart Window is getting a few new features meant to help people pick up their work right where they left off. The features, announced Tuesday, should make it easier to find answers, organize tabs together and see what you were working on earlier. To make answers more readily available in Smart Window, Firefox is partnering with the AI company Exa as a search provider. This lets Smart Window pull current information from around the internet and it provides citations for that information. So you shouldn't need to jump around in tabs looking for citations. Firefox told CNET in a video call that a critical part of its doing business with Exa is that the company shares a lot of Firefox's privacy principles, like a zero data retention policy. "That is a red line for us to make sure [Smart Window is] as private as possible," Ajit Varma, the head of Firefox, said. Smart Window can also let you group tabs together so you can keep your research organized. So if you're researching running shoes, for example, you can create a group that is all shoe-related tabs. Firefox told CNET that if you give Smart Window permission, it will use the content of the webpages to figure out related themes and group webpages accordingly. You can also manually add or remove tabs from groups. In addition, Smart Window can easily show you the tabs you recently viewed. That way, if you're clearing out tabs and accidentally close one that's relevant to what you're working on, you can ask the browser to show you the tabs you were looking at. What makes this different from a standard browser history log is that it shows you a snapshot of the webpage itself, as opposed to a URL and webpage name. So if you remember what the webpage looks like, you should be able to find it. It's important to note that Smart Window is not a replacement for the Firefox browser. According to Mozilla, Smart Window is an optional window type within Firefox. "Smart Window is completely optional and opt-in," Mozilla writes in the Smart Window privacy notice. "It builds on the classic Firefox experience (classic window) by using AI to enhance your browsing experience." Zachary McAuliffe Senior writer Zach began writing for CNET in November, 2021 after writing for a broadcast news station in his hometown, Cincinnati, for five years. You can usually find him hanging out with his wife, son and dog in their home. See full bio
Exa Connect brings private data sources to AI agents. Exa Connect enables AI agents to access trusted data beyond the public web, including ZoomInfo, Crunchbase, Similarweb, and other leading providers for richer business intelligence. July 21, 2026 Exa has introduced Exa Connect, a new platform that enables AI agents to access trusted data providers beyond the public web. At launch, it supports providers including ZoomInfo, Crunchbase, Similarweb, and several others spanning business intelligence, financial data, research, healthcare, and media. Why this matters. Most AI agents today rely heavily on publicly available information. That works well for general research, but many business workflows require access to proprietary datasets that are not indexed by traditional search engines. Examples include: * Company and funding data * Sales intelligence * Website traffic analytics * Healthcare datasets * Financial market data * Research databases Exa Connect allows developers to combine these trusted data sources with public web search through a single interface, enabling AI agents to generate more informed and context-rich responses. Available data providers. Exa Connect launches with support for providers such as: * ZoomInfo - Sales intelligence and contact data * Crunchbase - Company and funding data * Similarweb - Website traffic analytics * Harmonic - Startup intelligence * OpenAlex - Research databases * Definitive Healthcare - Healthcare datasets * Alpha Vantage - Financial market data * Particle - Media intelligence * Baselayer - Compliance and KYB * Intellizence - Market monitoring The platform supports both self-serve and on-request providers, with additional integrations expected over time. Potential use cases. Developers building AI applications can use Exa Connect for workflows including: * Company research - Combine public web data with proprietary funding and firmographic data * Sales prospecting - Enrich leads with real-time contact and company intelligence * Market intelligence - Pull traffic analytics and competitive benchmarks * Competitive analysis - Monitor industry signals across public and private sources * Investment research - Access financial datasets alongside news and filings * Lead enrichment - Automatically enrich CRM records with up-to-date data * Industry monitoring - Track developments across specialized research and media sources * AI-powered business assistants - Build agents that answer complex business questions with verified data Instead of stitching together multiple APIs, agents can retrieve public and private information through a unified search experience. A shift toward data-aware AI agents. The launch of Exa Connect reflects a broader shift in the AI ecosystem. The next generation of AI agents will not rely solely on publicly indexed websites. They will increasingly combine web search with specialized, permissioned data sources to deliver more accurate and actionable outputs. For organizations building AI-powered products, access to trusted proprietary data may become as important as access to the public web. Exa Connect is an early step in that direction - and a signal that the infrastructure layer for AI agents is maturing fast. Developers can explore Exa Connect and view the full list of available providers at exa.ai/connect. #ai-agents #data-sources #business-intelligence Stay ahead of the curve. Join 10,000+ marketers receiving its weekly insights on AI tools, trends, and strategies.