The web search custom skill is based on a prebuilt topic block in Virtual Agent Designer, and is available when you turn on Now Assist in Virtual Agent. This feature is automatically triggered when both AI Search and the LLM can't find information to answer an end user's query. This feature can also be manually triggered whenever end users select the Web search results icon () to enter into web search mode. Once web search activates, a third-party AI performs the search and returns with an answer.

For more information about the web search mode end-user display and functionality, see Web search.

For example, if you ask the LLM, “Who was the first president of the USA?” and it or AI Search is unable to find an answer, Web Search seeks the information on the internet and return with an answer. In this case, the agent returns information on George Washington. This search is asynchronous and will have a delay instead of an instant reply.

The web search parameter is available on the System Properties [sys_properties] table, under the property sn_nowassist_va.websearch_fallback_enabled. The values no_response_from_ai_search and no_response_from_llm trigger when they don’t return information for a query.

Web Search AI choices are available in the OneExtend Definition Configs related list within the AI Search answers entry in the OneExtend Capabilities [sys_one_extend_capability_list] table. Select one of the AI definitions there, such as Perplexity, and set its value to true. Activate a matching AI credential by navigating to ALL > Connections & credentials > Credentials, and setting the matching API key (such as Perplexity API key active value to true).

For more information on how to work with the AI Search answers OneExtend capability, see Configure AI search answers capability for web search.

For more information on how to add web search as a tool in the Now Assist Skill Kit, see Add a web search.

For more information on how to review execution and error logs, see Generative AI logs table.