DuckDuckGo Duck.ai is DuckDuckGo's private AI chat product that gives anonymized access to several third-party chat models, paired with a companion feature called Search Assist (DuckAssist) that adds AI-generated, source-linked answers directly into DuckDuckGo's regular search results. It's built for people who want to use AI chat and AI-assisted search without the model providers seeing who they are.
What it is
Duck.ai offers a chat interface where you can talk to a selection of third-party language models — such as OpenAI's and Anthropic's — through DuckDuckGo rather than directly, so your identity isn't tied to the conversation the way it might be through a provider's own app. Alongside it, DuckAssist scans the web and uses natural-language technology to generate a brief answer directly on the DuckDuckGo search results page for eligible queries.
How it answers and cites sources
DuckAssist responses 'always link directly to one or two sources, citing where the answer came from,' so you can verify the claim on the original page. DuckDuckGo's traditional search results are largely sourced from Bing, though the company also maintains its own crawler, DuckDuckBot, and additional indexes to support its results — meaning Duck.ai and DuckAssist draw on a mix of partner and DuckDuckGo-operated sources rather than a single independent index.
Pricing and access
Duck.ai and DuckAssist are freemium. Chatting on Duck.ai is free within a daily usage limit, and several models are available at no cost: Anthropic's Claude 4.5 Haiku, Mistral AI's Mistral Small 4, OpenAI's GPT-5.4 nano and GPT-5.4 mini, plus gpt-oss-120b and Gemma 4 31B (hosted by Tinfoil.sh). A paid DuckDuckGo Plus plan costs $9.99/month (or $99.99/year) and adds access to GPT-5.4 and Claude Sonnet 4.6; a higher Pro tier additionally unlocks Claude Opus 4.8, higher reasoning effort, and 2x the usage limits of Plus.
Privacy and data use
DuckDuckGo says Duck.ai chats 'are not used for any AI training, either by us or the underlying model providers,' and describes its overall approach as AI features that 'don't track how you use them, store your prompts, or train on your data.' The sources reviewed do not include a formal GDPR-certification statement or details on where servers are physically hosted, so users with strict compliance needs should check DuckDuckGo's current policies directly.
Who it's for
Duck.ai suits privacy-conscious users who want to try multiple AI chat models — from free lightweight options to paid frontier models like Claude Opus 4.8 — without the model providers linking the conversation to their identity. DuckAssist, meanwhile, is aimed at anyone doing a normal DuckDuckGo search who wants a quick, sourced answer without leaving the results page.