Brave (US) · last updated 2026-05-27
Brave Leo
Leo is the AI assistant integrated into the Brave browser, with privacy-first defaults: queries do not require accounts, are not retained, and are not tied to user identifiers. Backed by Llama and Mistral models with optional premium access to Claude. Less consequential for raw citation share than the major engines, but meaningful for publishers reaching privacy-conscious or developer audiences who use Brave as a daily browser.
Grounding model
Multi-model routing (Llama by default, Mistral and Claude as options) with web grounding via Brave Search's independent index. Brave Search has its own crawler and is one of the few non-Bing, non-Google Western indexes operating at scale.
Citation style
Inline source links beneath claims, with a sources expandable panel. Citation density is moderate. The privacy-preserving design means no cross-session source weighting; each conversation is grounded freshly.
What it rewards
- Indexing in Brave Search (separate from Google and Bing)
- Clean technical writing and structured data
- Privacy-respecting content patterns (cookie-light pages perform better)
- Recent dates and dating discipline
What it penalizes
- Pages with heavy tracker loads (Brave's design philosophy biases against them)
- Sites blocked from Brave Search crawler
- Content without clear citation-worthy claims