DuckDuckGo, known for its privacy-focused approach to search, has unveiled ambitious plans to embed artificial intelligence into its search engine. Recently, the company announced that its AI-generated answers, which are displayed for specific queries, have moved out of the beta phase. These answers now source information from a broader range of websites, expanding beyond just Wikipedia.
The integration of web search capabilities within its AI chatbot is also on the horizon. DuckDuckGo initially launched its AI-assisted answers, originally named DuckAssist, in 2023. The feature is designed to provide users with concise and relevant responses, offering a more streamlined experience compared to tools like Google’s AI Overviews. Users can customize their preferences, including the option to turn off these responses entirely.
For those who have set DuckDuckGo’s AI-generated answers to “often,” it's important to note that they will only appear around 20 percent of the time. However, the company plans to increase this frequency in the future. “We’d like to raise that over time,” stated Gabriel Weinberg, the CEO and founder of DuckDuckGo, in an interview with The Verge. “That’s another major area that we’re working on … We want to kind of stay conservative with it. We don’t want to put it in front of people if we don’t think it’s right.”
Some of DuckDuckGo’s AI-assisted answers feature a box for follow-up questions, directing users to converse with the Duck.ai chatbot. Similar to its AI-assisted answers, there’s no need for an account to use Duck.ai, maintaining the company’s strong emphasis on privacy. Users have the option to toggle between various AI models, including GPT-4o mini, o3-mini, Llama 3.3, Mistral Small 3, and Claude 3 Haiku. This feature allows for anonymous interaction by hiding users’ IP addresses.
DuckDuckGo has also secured agreements with the AI companies responsible for each model, ensuring that user data is not utilized for training purposes. Another noteworthy feature, called Recent Chats, has been implemented, which stores users’ previous conversations locally on their devices instead of on DuckDuckGo’s servers.
Although Duck.ai has exited beta, the rollout of new features is far from over. In the coming weeks, Duck.ai will introduce support for web search, significantly enhancing its capacity to respond to user inquiries. Additionally, the company is actively working on incorporating voice interaction on both iPhone and Android platforms, as well as the ability to upload images for inquiry.
Weinberg mentioned that while Duck.ai will remain free for users, there may be plans to offer access to more advanced AI models through a subscription model priced at $9.99 per month. However, DuckDuckGo does not intend to follow in the footsteps of companies like OpenAI, Google, Microsoft, or Meta by creating a standalone app for its AI chatbot. “We think the end state is that really the ultimate app mixes all these things,” Weinberg explained. “We think some queries are better to start with chat, some are better to start with search. A lot of them, you could start with either. Then sometimes you want to flow between. And if you’re flowing between, kind of fluidly like that, it’s a better experience to have it in one app.”
Users can explore DuckDuckGo’s chatbot on the Duck.ai website or through the DuckDuckGo browser, and they can also find AI-assisted answers directly within the DuckDuckGo search engine. This integration of AI is set to redefine how users interact with search engines while prioritizing their privacy.
