i2Coalition Member Spotlight: SerpApi

SerpApi was launched in 2017 by a team that wanted web scraping, parsing and testing to be a no-brainer, bringing order to what they describe as “the proxy chaos and HTML mess”. SerpApi provides automated tools that collect and organize search data for organizations around the world.” We caught up with founder and CEO Julien Khaleghy to chat about scaling, responsibility, and the crucial role of web scraping in the AI boom.

i2Coalition: Can you give us the elevator pitch for SerpApi?
Julien Khaleghy: SerpApi is the world’s leading provider of search data. We pioneered APIs that turn search engine results into structured, developer-ready information. Developers, researchers, and Fortune 500 companies use us to bring live results from Google, Bing, YouTube, and other sources into their applications, analytics and research. With more than 100 specialized APIs, we support everything from AI development and machine learning to SEO monitoring, cybersecurity intelligence, and ecommerce analysis.

i2Coalition: How do you describe search engine APIs as a service when you’re at a cocktail party?
JK: We’re like the help desk at a public library. Search results, like the books in a library, already exist and are available to anyone who walks in. But instead of handing you a stack of card catalogs and sending you off on your own, we pull from the library system and give you an organized list of the most relevant materials, so you can go do your own work. Without a system to organize and structure that material, all of that information is hard to access and unusable at large scale.

One of our most popular uses is training large language models and powering AI agents. We’re the gateway to the internet for those systems. We connect them to the web and ground them in real information, which reduces hallucinations.

i2Coalition: How has the technology landscape changed in recent years, in terms of what you do?
JK: AI has rapidly increased demand for search results data and search indexes, and we’re answering that call. We keep building new APIs for public search engines. We’ve also gone beyond scraping them and built our own search index. It’s still young, but it’s growing quickly.

We recently released Extract API, which helps developers retrieve real-time data from publicly available web pages in easy-to-use formats. Until now, we’ve helped developers find relevant pages. Extract API lets them reach the structured content behind those pages. For the first time, developers can search, discover and extract public web data in a single workflow.

i2Coalition: What impact do you think recent geopolitical events have had on your more recent growth?

JK: Competition among AI providers has become one of the biggest debates in the world, but none of these companies could exist or progress without access to data. We play a critical role there. Our data keeps AI models grounded in truth, which matters more as these models advance.

i2Coalition: Why did your team find it important to join the i2Coalition?
JK: I believe in public access to information and a free and open internet. For me, that’s a core value, not just a technology position, and it’s tied to America’s founding ideals. The First Amendment protected the right to information and enlightenment in the era of the printing press. 

In the era of AI, I believe public information should be just as easy for everyone to reach. That belief lines up with why i2Coalition exists: to advance an open, secure, innovative, resilient, and globally connected internet, and to give the companies that build it a permanent, credible voice.

AI is becoming the difference between success and failure for everyone, from Fortune 500 companies to small businesses. That makes access to search data essential, and our work more important than ever. We exist so developers, researchers and businesses can keep innovating without constraint. We want to be a steward of the internet’s founding principle that information should be open and accessible to everyone.

i2Coalition: Which i2Coalition initiatives connect most deeply with your team’s ethos?
JK: Transparency is a core value at SerpApi. We believe a more open world is a better one, and that transparency leads to integrity. That’s why we’re especially excited to be part of the Ethical Web Data Collection Initiative. We want to help champion ethical guidelines and build public trust among data collectors, because this work is critical infrastructure for technology and innovation.

i2Coalition: Where does government policy interface with your work on a daily basis?
JK: Policymakers are asking good questions about how data moves online and what responsible collection looks like, and we want to help answer them. I started SerpApi because I believe public information should be easy for everyone to access. For me, that belief is personal. Several of us on the team moved to the United States partly because of the freedoms the First Amendment protects, including the freedom to seek out information and learn from it. That freedom shouldn’t depend on where you live, and the open web helped make it real for anyone with a connection. It’s a big reason the internet has driven so much innovation around the world.

SerpApi sources its data from scraping public pages, deals with data providers, and its own search index. Each of those has its own rules, and government policy shapes how we handle compliance and how we design our products. We stay close to it because that’s part of doing this work well and being a partner our customers can trust. As more people turn to AI tools for answers, those tools need the same access to the open web, or the answers they give will be less accurate and less useful.