DuckDuckGo is also experimenting with AI summarization, but in a less obtrusive way

DuckDuckGo isn't everyone's first choice, but many people like it because it's privacy-focused, lightweight, and easy to use. DuckDuckGo also widely deploys AI summaries of search results, although you may prefer Google 's summaries .

DuckDuckGo has announced that it will be moving its AI summaries out of beta and expanding their capabilities. DuckDuckGo's AI-generated answers, which were originally launched in 2023 under the name "DuckAssist," now pull information from more web sources beyond Wikipedia. They're meant to be a less intrusive alternative to similar AI summaries found in other search engines. Whether that's entirely true is up to you, but they certainly look a lot nicer than anything Google is doing right now.

DuckDuckGo is focusing heavily on making this as user-friendly as possible. You can adjust how often these AI-generated answers appear, including turning them off entirely. Even with them set to “frequent,” these summaries currently only show up for about 20% of searches, though DuckDuckGo plans to gradually increase this frequency. The AI-generated summaries also make it clear which websites they used as sources. Some summaries include a box for follow-up questions — if you use that box, you’ll be taken to DuckDuckGo’s AI chatbot, Duck.ai.

And speaking of Duck.ai, the company’s standalone chatbot is also out of beta, so you have another chatbot alternative to check out. Like its search summaries and, frankly, the entire browser, Duck.ai is trying to build around privacy. You don’t need an account to use the service, and DuckDuckGo emphasizes that user data isn’t used to train its AI models. The chatbot offers the ability to switch between several basic AI models, including GPT -4o mini , o3-mini , Llama 3.3 , Mistral Small 3 , and Claude 3 Haiku . While we’ve seen this from a few chatbots out there, it’s nice to see it in a place where privacy is such a priority. DuckDuckGo has signed agreements with the companies that provide these models to ensure user data privacy.

A new “Recent Chats” feature has been introduced on Duck.ai, which stores chat history locally on the user’s device rather than on DuckDuckGo’s servers. And the work doesn’t stop there. In the coming weeks, DuckDuckGo plans to integrate web search functionality directly into the chatbot. This could significantly improve its ability to answer more queries, especially those that require up-to-date information. Other planned features include multimodality, adding voice interaction on iPhone and Android devices, and the ability to upload images and ask questions about them.

CEO Gabriel Weinberg confirmed that Duck.ai will remain free to use. However, the company is considering offering access to more advanced AI models as part of its current $9.99/month subscription service, which currently includes features like VPN and identity theft protection. For now, though, they’re free, so you might want to take advantage of them. He also said that unlike some competitors, DuckDuckGo doesn’t plan to release a dedicated app for its chatbot — the search and chat experience will largely be one and the same, likely looking a lot like Microsoft Copilot, then Bing Chat, when it launches.

New AI improvements, including new AI summaries and new chatbots, will be available through the DuckDuckGo website.