Personal search engine DuckDuckGo is leaning additional into the generative AI alternative.
The non-tracking search engine has been dabbling with increasing the function of AI help in its product for the previous yr, together with launching a chatbot-style interface final fall — out there at Duck.ai. In a blog post Thursday, the corporate mentioned the service is now exiting beta. It’s additionally now merely referred to as Duck.ai, changing the longer, mouthful title DuckDuckGo AI Chat.
Customers of Duck.ai can dip into AI fashions developed by the likes of Anthropic, OpenAI and Meta through a chatbot-style interface that sees their search queries dealt with in a conversational type. In different phrases, they get AI-generated solutions to go looking asks powered by cutting-edge AI fashions that DuckDuckGo is making out there, as an alternative of the traditional search engine checklist of hyperlinks.
DuckDuckGo notes that it has expanded the fashions customers of Duck.ai can faucet into — with current additions together with OpenAI’s o3-mini, Meta’s Llama 3.3, and Mistral’s Small 3.
Whereas entry to Duck.ai is presently free, there’s a every day restrict on queries — and DuckDuckGo says it’s “exploring a paid plan for entry to larger limits and extra superior (and expensive) chat fashions.”
Concurrently, the corporate is dialling up its use of GenAI in its typical search engine interface — at duck.com or duckduckgo.com — by increasing the frequency that the search engine exhibits AI-assisted solutions in response to a question. These are generative AI textual content summaries that may seem in response to go looking queries, above the same old blue hyperlinks.
“We now serve hundreds of thousands of AI-assisted solutions every day. If you happen to decide to indicate them typically in our conventional search outcomes, they need to seem over 20% of the time,” the corporate writes.
Regardless of deepening its embrace of GenAI, the search agency is being cautious to make sure that customers retain company over how a lot AI babble results in their search outcomes. Customers are ready to decide on the frequency that AI-generated solutions will seem — with “generally” being the default, and different choices “typically”, “on-demand”, and “by no means” letting customers select their very own degree of AI journey.
DuckDuckGo is responding to wider market shifts, as GenAI has continued to upend digital business-as-usual usually and net search particularly. Search kingpin Google has scrambled to fast-follow the viral fallout from OpenAI’s AI chatbot, ChatGPT, and now embeds generative responses from its personal AI fashions into search outcomes. Extra not too long ago, Google has even been experimenting with ditching hyperlinks totally in favor of AI summaries with a so-called AI Mode.
So what can DDG deliver to this aggressive frenzy? The corporate clearly feels its core privateness pledge can switch into this space. It provides customers the possibility to faucet into main GenAI instruments with decreased privateness dangers, since they don’t want to enroll in an account with an AI large to get entry.
“Duck.ai permits you to use fashions from main mannequin suppliers with out being tracked,” its privateness coverage suggests.
“Chats are anonymized through proxying and by no means used for AI mannequin coaching,” DuckDuckGo additionally writes within the blog post, which touts the free (and sign-up free) entry to what it payments as “non-public, helpful, and non-obligatory AI.”
So the pitch right here type of boils right down to ‘have your GenAI cake and eat it in secret.’ Though, should you learn the complete Duck.ai privateness coverage, DuckDuckGo is cautious to level out that in case your search queries embrace your individual private information, that might find yourself sitting on the servers of enormous language mannequin makers. Albeit, it stipulates, it’s not tied again to your digital ID because it’s masking IPs and so forth.
One other function DuckDuckGo is providing to make it simpler to combine GenAI into customers’ search workflows is the flexibility to simply change between its typical search engine interface to AI chat and vice versa.
A chat button displayed beneath the search field of its search engine (see screengrab beneath) immediately transports the consumer to the AI chat interface — with the prompt-field there pre-filled with no matter they’d simply been trying to find on DDG’s search engine, making it simple to hit the ship button and get an AI-generated reply to the identical question.
Reversing this move simply requires tapping on the identical (now highlighted) chat button to flip again to its typical net search interface. So this can be a better of each worlds strategy to tapping GenAI in search.
“We’re discovering that some individuals desire to start out in chat mode after which bounce into extra conventional search outcomes when wanted, whereas others desire the alternative,” DuckDuckGo writes, suggesting “some questions simply lend themselves extra naturally to 1 mode or the opposite, too.”
“So, we thought one of the best factor to do was provide each. We made it simple to maneuver between them, and we included an off change for individuals who’d wish to keep away from AI altogether,” it provides.
(Notice: The chat button can be described as “non-obligatory” — indicating that customers can delve into settings to show this off too in the event that they don’t even need a visible nudge in the direction of GenAI.)
Whereas DuckDuckGo began with simply Wikipedia because the supply for its AI-assisted solutions, it has since expanded to incorporate sources from throughout the online, offering what it dubs as “outstanding supply hyperlinks” with extra info on what’s underpinning the AI solutions.
One other replace is a “Current Chats” function that shops customers’ conversations with the AI search interface “regionally in your system — not on DuckDuckGo or different distant servers.”
Right here, too, customers can decide to disable the storage in the event that they don’t need any file of their chats stored in any respect, even on their very own system.
“Duck.ai chats usually are not used for any AI coaching, both by us or the underlying mannequin suppliers,” DuckDuckGo additionally writes. “To reply with solutions and guarantee all methods are working, these suppliers could retailer chats briefly, however we take away all of the metadata so there’s no method for them to tie chats again to you personally.”
“On prime of that, we’ve agreements in place with all suppliers to make sure that any saved chats are fully deleted inside 30 days.”