Search engine DuckDuckGo announced on Wednesday the launch of its “generative AI” service called DuckAssist.
Unlike Microsoft’s new Bing, DuckAssist is a new type of instant answer that appears in search results. It will be fully integrated into DuckDuckGo’s privacy search, so the interface of DuckDuckGo will not change noticeably.
We summarized the characteristics of this service:
- DuckAssist uses DuckDuckGo’s proactive indexing to scan Wikipedia and the Encyclopedia Britannica as sources of answers.
- DuckAssist uses natural language technology from OpenAI and Anthropic to summarize the content of Wikipedia.
- When users search for questions on DuckDuckGo, DuckAssist may appear in the search results.
- DuckAssist does not appear in every search, only when there is a match to the question.
- Adding the word “wiki” to the search makes it more likely for DuckAssist to appear in the search results.
- DuckDuckGo uses the latest (up to a few weeks) complete Wikipedia data.
- DuckAssist may make some mistakes. Users can disable “instant answers” in browser and extension search settings.
- DuckAssist can be used without logging in and keeps users anonymous.
DuckAssist is still in the testing phase and only provides an English version on DuckDuckGo browsers（iOS、Android and Mac）and browser extensions（Firefox、Chrome and Safari）. If the trial goes well, the official will soon promote it to all DuckDuckGo search users. Interested readers can try it out in advance.
