While to some, the word DuckDuckGo sounds like a children’s game, those who know the search engine are fans of its privacy-first approach to web browsing. The Google alternative has applied this same philosophy to its new AI features, including AI summaries and an AI chatbot.
Known for protecting users from personal data collection, DuckDuckGo has moved some new AI features out of beta, including straightforward AI-assisted answers and an AI chatbot called Duck.ai. These features are now free, anonymized, and most importantly, optional for all users.
Where DuckDuckGo AI Features Have Google Beat
Google has received some serious flack for its cumbersome and inexorable AI-generated search overviews, which have pushed users to find convoluted ways of turning off Google’s AI summaries, including creative strategies like cursing at the search engine. Despite this, Google is adding even more AI elements into Google Search.
By contrast, DuckDuckGo’s new AI features favor user ease and privacy. The latter is something that all tech companies claim to prioritize but don’t always execute, and Google is no exception. As we invite AI tools further into our lives, data privacy becomes increasingly important.
Privacy
According to the latest DuckDuckGo News announcement, the goal of its new AI features is to “offer the productivity benefits of AI without privacy risks like tracking your prompts and training on your data.” For example, chats with Duck.ai are anonymized by DuckDuckGo, and will not be shared for training purposes.
Customization
In addition to not tracking your AI chats, the company also gives you the power to customize your user experience, without requiring you to create an account or demanding personal information. You also don’t need the DuckDuckGo browser app to take advantage of these new AI tools, as they’re available on the search engine regardless of the app you use.
With Duck.ai, you have the option to choose from the following AI models:
- OpenAI’s GPT-4o mini and o3-mini
- Meta’s Llama 3.3
- Mistral’s Small 3
- Anthropic’s Claude 3 Haiku
DuckDuckGo’s take on AI search overviews is also refreshing compared to other search engines. While the summaries are clear, concise, and relatively accurate thanks to recent source expansion, you have the power to disable or change their frequency. The search engine gives you the option to select a cadence of “often, sometimes (default), on-demand, or never.”
With the abuse of user privacy becoming more and more prevalent online, it seems like a rarity to find a search engine like DuckDuckGo that doesn’t ruthlessly collect every grain of your data. Even if I’m only using search engine-based AI tools to find cardamom latte recipes, I still don’t appreciate companies playing watch dog in an effort to better their models. At this point, I don’t trust that this “training” won’t lead to me receiving ads for milk frothers.
