DuckDuckGo is joining the ranks of Microsoft and Google by introducing a generative AI-assisted feature called DuckAssist. Powered by natural language technology from OpenAI and Anthropic, DuckAssist is leveraging Wikipedia and Encyclopedia Britannica to generate summaries of answers to search queries. This feature enables the user to receive quick answers to their queries without having to click the links in the search results.
It is an addition to the search engine’s existing Instant Answers feature, this feature is going to be made available in DuckDuckGo’s browser apps and extensions in a beta version, free of charge.
To enable this, DuckAssist takes information from Wikipedia and Britannica and then generates an answer to a user’s query. The answer is summarized and made more conversational using OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Anthropic.
DuckDuckGo adds that Wikipedia will be the primary source for generating the answers as it is a public resource with a transparent editorial process, it cites all the sources used in an article, it is relatively reliable across a wide variety of subjects, it is always being updated, and it can easily trace its information sources.
As this evolves, DuckAssist may not find it easy to answer complex questions and could in some cases generate inaccurate information in response if there’s an underlying error in the source material given. To retain the quality and accuracy of the answers, DuckDuckGo has limited the sources DuckAssist draws from.
“DuckAssist is anonymous, with no logging in required. It’s a fully integrated part of DuckDuckGo Private Search, which is also free and anonymous. We don’t save or share your search or browsing history with third parties. Additionally, our anonymous queries will not be used to train their AI models. And anything you share via the anonymous feedback link goes to us and us alone.” Gabriel Weinberg stated in his blog post.
DuckAssist may provide some users with useful answers, but the technology is still a work in progress. Users of DuckAssist should be aware that the information generated may not always be accurate and the feature may be disabled in search settings if desired.
