OFICIAL AWS What's New

Launching External Web Access for Web Search on Amazon Bedrock

What happened
Based on AWS What's New · Aug 19, 2026

AWS has expanded Web Search on Amazon Bedrock to allow direct retrieval of public web content for real-time responses, while maintaining an option to restrict searches to an internal AWS index for sensitive use cases.

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Launching External Web Access for Web Search on Amazon Bedrock
AWS What's New — Amazon Web Services
Key points
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Earlier this month, we details Web Search on Amazon Bedrock, a built-in server-side tool that allows you to ground model responses with current web knowledge, while maintaining data within your secured AWS environment with zero data egress.
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Today, the company is expanding Web Search to enable the external_web_access parameter allowing Web Search to retrieve content directly from the public web so models can ground responses in the latest information.
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To enable external_web_access, grant the bedrock-websearch:ExternalWebAccess IAM permission to the request identity and leave the external_web_access parameter at its default of true.
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In doing so, Web Search can then fetch content live from the public web for use cases that need the freshest possible information, such as latest sports score, live pricing, or newly released documentation.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) introduced Web Search on Amazon Bedrock earlier this month as a server-side tool to ground model responses using current web knowledge without data leaving secured AWS environments. The service now supports an external_web_access parameter, enabling direct retrieval of content from the public web when needed. This feature is designed for use cases requiring the most up-to-date information, such as live sports scores or real-time pricing. The default setting for external_web_access is true, allowing models to fetch fresh data from the public internet.

To activate external web access, users must grant the bedrock-websearch:ExternalWebAccess IAM permission to the request identity. AWS emphasizes that enabling this feature allows Web Search to pull live content from the public web, improving response accuracy for time-sensitive queries. However, the company notes that sensitive data should remain within AWS boundaries, where retrieval is limited to Amazon’s internal web index and knowledge graph.

For organizations prioritizing data security, AWS provides an option to disable external web access by setting external_web_access to false. When disabled, Web Search operates entirely within the AWS environment, ensuring no request data leaves the secured boundary. This setting is recommended for handling confidential or proprietary information that must not interact with external sources.

The new external web access capability is available in select AWS Regions: US East (N. Virginia), US East (Ohio), and US West (Oregon). AWS advises users to review the Amazon Bedrock User Guide for configuration details and consult the pricing page for cost implications. Additional resources include a blog post and documentation on controlling external web access.

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