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DuckDuckGo introduces private AI-powered search

March 11, 2025, 5:28 pm EDT

The Verge: “DuckDuckGo has big plans for embedding AI into its search engine. The privacy-focused company just announced that its AI-generated answers, which appear for certain queries on its search engine, have exited beta and now source information from across the web — not just Wikipedia. It will soon integrate web search within its AI chatbot, which has also exited beta.”

“DuckDuckGo first launched AI-assisted answers — originally called DuckAssist — in 2023. The feature is billed as a less obnoxious version of tools like Google’s AI Overviews, designed to offer more concise responses and let you adjust how often you see them, including turning the responses off entirely. If you have DuckDuckGo’s AI-generated answers set to “often,” you’ll still only see them around 20 percent of the time, though the company plans on increasing the frequency eventually.”

TechCrunch: “So what can DDG bring to this competitive frenzy? The company clearly feels its core privacy pledge can transfer into this area. It offers users the chance to tap into major GenAI tools with reduced privacy risks, since they do not need to sign up for an account with an AI giant to get access.”

““Duck.ai allows you to use models from leading model providers without being tracked,” its privacy policy suggests.”

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