DuckDuckGo introduces AI chat for private access to models such as ChatGPT

DuckDuckGo now offers private AI chats, enabling anonymous access to models such as GPT-3.5 Turbo and Claude 3 Haiku. It won't save your discussions, and the firms behind each AI model won't be able to use them for training, freeing you from having to go through a settings box to opt out.

DuckDuckGo calls the chat models on your behalf, changing your IP address with its own, so your interactions remain anonymous. "This way it looks like the requests are coming from us and not you," claims DuckDuckGo. However, DuckDuckGo warns that while AI providers "may store chats temporarily," they cannot trace them back to you.

DuckDuckGo's privacy policy states that it eliminates all personal information, including IP addresses, before forwarding queries. The company has also reached agreements with AI companies to destroy stored communications within 30 days and prevent them from being used to train their models. To clear your chat, press the fire button, as you would in DuckDuckGo's browser.

In addition to GPT-3.5 and Claude, DuckDuckGo's AI chat supports Meta's Llama 3 70B model and Mixtral 8x7B. To access DuckDuckGo's AI chats, go to duck.ai or use the shortcuts "!ai" or "!chat bang". It's also on the right side of the DuckDuckGo search engine's top menu bar, which you may disable from your settings menu.

The tool is free to use "within a daily limit," but DuckDuckGo says it may ultimately offer a subscription plan with higher limitations and access to more complex models. The business also intends to add more conversation models, including those hosted by DuckDuckGo and users. Last year, DuckDuckGo introduced DuckAssist, an AI-powered search service akin to Microsoft Copilot and Google Gemini.