Final 12 months, DuckDuckGo launched an AI chat characteristic that made ChatGPT queries non-public. Now, the corporate is increasing the AI capabilities of its browser to convey extra “non-public, helpful, and elective AI options” with widespread chatbots.
By accessing the free Duck.ai characteristic, customers can get AI-assisted solutions day by day without having an account. The corporate says that customers who choose to make use of these searches will see it over 20% of the time, as DuckDuckGo nonetheless prioritizes the present search characteristic.
Among the many updates, the Duck.ai chat will get upgraded fashions, together with the most recent GPT-4o mini and o3-mini from OpenAI, Meta Llama 3.3, Mistral Small 3, and Claude 3 Haiku from Anthropic. There may be additionally a Latest Chats characteristic to retailer conversations domestically in your gadget and expanded sources throughout the net, because the AI-assisted solutions now convey data in English-language queries outdoors the US.
In a weblog publish, DuckDuckGo explains why it made this alteration: “We’re discovering that some individuals favor to start out in chat mode after which bounce into extra conventional search outcomes when wanted, whereas others favor the other. (Some questions simply lend themselves extra naturally to at least one mode or the opposite, too.) So, we thought the most effective factor to do was provide each. We made it straightforward to maneuver between them, and we included an off change for individuals who’d wish to keep away from AI altogether.”
DuckDuckGo says you need to use its AI by accessing the chatbot web site through the elective chat icons inside its search engine, browsers, or iOS widget. You too can use the “!AI” or “!chat” instructions from any DuckDuckGo search.
The corporate additionally enables you to select how a lot AI you need in your searches from “By no means” to “On-demand,” “Generally,” which is the default, and “Typically,” which can make them seem over 20% of the time.
DuckDuckGo can be ensuring customers know the place the data the AI-based was coming from. The Duck.ai characteristic is free to make use of, and no log-in is required. Nevertheless, customers would possibly encounter a day by day restrict for chatting with the platform. Sooner or later, the corporate would possibly introduce a paid plan for entry to “increased limits and extra superior and expensive chat fashions.”