I’d argue that Perplexity is in this camp as well. It’s my go-to for anything more open-ended or for multi-step research I need to do. No need to wade through garbage search results, and it cites its sources. Kagi seems to be doing very much the same thing, but in addition to their paid search engine service.

I don’t know that I’d switch from Perplexity, but I could see an argument for it.

Funny, that’s actually what motivated me at my last job. Things were fucked up, but not so fucked up that it was overwhelming. It was the Goldilocks zone of just fucked up enough that I think I can not only fix it, but look good if I do. It was a fun journey, all told, but there were definitely frustrations, even ones that lasted years.