DuckDuckGo has massive plans for embedding AI into its search engine. The privacy-focused firm simply introduced that its AI-generated solutions, which seem for sure queries on its search engine, have exited beta and now supply data from throughout the net — not simply Wikipedia. It can quickly combine net search inside its AI chatbot, which has additionally exited beta.
DuckDuckGo first launched AI-assisted solutions — initially referred to as DuckAssist — in 2023. The function is billed as a much less obnoxious model of instruments like Google’s AI Overviews, designed to supply extra concise responses and allow you to modify how usually you see them, together with turning the responses off completely. In case you have DuckDuckGo’s AI-generated solutions set to “usually,” you’ll nonetheless solely see them round 20 % of the time, although the corporate plans on growing the frequency finally.
“We’d like to boost that over time,” Gabriel Weinberg, the CEO and founding father of DuckDuckGo, advised The Verge. “That’s one other main space that we’re engaged on … We wish to sort of keep conservative with it. We don’t wish to put it in entrance of individuals if we don’t suppose it’s proper.”
A few of DuckDuckGo’s AI-assisted solutions deliver up a field for follow-up questions, redirecting you to a dialog with its Duck.ai chatbot. As is the case with its AI-assisted solutions, you don’t want an account to make use of Duck.ai, and it comes with the identical emphasis on privateness. It helps you to toggle between GPT-4o mini, o3-mini, Llama 3.3, Mistral Small 3, and Claude 3 Haiku, with the benefit being that you would be able to work together with every mannequin anonymously by hiding your IP deal with. DuckDuckGo additionally has agreements with the AI firm behind every mannequin to make sure your information isn’t used for coaching.
Duck.ai additionally rolled out a function referred to as Latest Chats, which shops your earlier conversations regionally in your system somewhat than on DuckDuckGo’s servers. Although Duck.ai can be leaving beta, that doesn’t imply the move of recent options will cease.
Within the subsequent few weeks, Duck.ai will add help for net search, which ought to improve its capability to reply to questions. The corporate can be engaged on including voice interplay on iPhone and Android, together with the flexibility to add photographs and ask questions on them. Weinberg mentioned that whereas Duck.ai will all the time stay free, the corporate is contemplating together with entry to extra superior AI fashions with its $9.99 monthly subscription.
DuckDuckGo isn’t going to hitch OpenAI, Google, Microsoft, and possibly even Meta in making a separate app for its AI chatbot, nevertheless. “We predict the tip state is that basically the final word app mixes all this stuff,” Weinberg mentioned. “We predict some queries are higher to start out with chat, some are higher to start out with search. Lots of them, you could possibly begin with both. Then typically you wish to move between. And if you happen to’re flowing between, sort of fluidly like that, it’s a greater expertise to have it in a single app.”
You possibly can check out DuckDuckGo’s chatbot on the Duck.ai web site or the DuckDuckGo browser, in addition to discover AI-assisted solutions within the DuckDuckGo search engine.