DuckDuckGo, a search firm, launched a free and nameless AI Chat service in June 2024. AI Chat joins DuckAssist, which generates solutions based mostly on Wikipedia, as a method to discover matters with AI. AI Chat operates with the extensively used prompt-and-response course of popularized by OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini.
However DuckDuckGo’s AI Chat seeks to reduce potential privateness issues by design. AI Chat affords nameless entry: No account, username, e-mail tackle, or password wanted. DuckDuckGo guarantees that your prompts and knowledge is not going to be used to coach any of the AI fashions. This implies you shouldn’t fear about content material out of your queries being embedded in a response delivered to different folks.
As of September 2024, AI Chat helps you to select to speak with any of 4 chat fashions:
- GPT-4o mini from OpenAI.
- Claude 3 Haiku from Anthropic.
- Llama 3.1 70B, an open-source mannequin from Meta.
- Mixtral 8x7B, an open-source mannequin from Mistral AI, a French firm.
You might swap between fashions at any time, permitting you to check responses. General, DuckDuckGo’s AI Chat gives a easy and free method to work together with 4 totally different massive language fashions anonymously.
Get began with DuckDuckGo AI Chat
Open a browser on a cellphone, laptop, or pill linked to the web, then:
- Go to duck.ai (or duckduckgo.com/chat) and choose the Get Began button.
- Subsequent, select a chat mannequin. Most individuals will need to settle for the default possibility of GPT-4o mini from OpenAI. (You might swap and experiment with a unique mannequin any time.)
- Evaluation the privateness coverage and phrases of use, after which choose the I Agree button if the phrases are acceptable.
- You may then use AI Chat a lot as you’d some other AI chat system: Enter your immediate, await the response, after which proceed the chat as you would like.
Entry AI Chat with search or bangs
DuckDuckGo additionally helps you to swap to an AI Chat from a search. On a search outcomes web page, choose the Chat menu merchandise to transform your search question to an AI Chat immediate. The textual content of your search phrases might be positioned within the immediate field, so you may modify it earlier than you ship the immediate to the system.
DuckDuckGo bang search shortcuts additionally provide !ai and !chat choices. Put both of those shortcuts at first of a DuckDuckGo search to convey the content material to the AI Chat system, moderately than a typical search. DuckDuckGo affords hundreds of bangs that permit you to ship your search not solely to DuckDuckGo providers but in addition to 3rd events, similar to Google (!g) or Wikipedia (!w).
AI Chat decisions: Copy, change, clear, or proceed
Choose the copy icon — to the top-right of every response — to repeat the textual content of a response to your gadget’s clipboard. Then it’s possible you’ll paste the content material right into a word, doc, e-mail, or textual content subject. Since your prompts and responses aren’t linked to an account, be sure to repeat after which save elsewhere any response you need to discuss with later. To the precise of the copy icon is a redo button, a circle with an arrow, that you could be use to trigger the system to generate one other response to your immediate.
Not proud of the response you obtain from one mannequin? Swap to a unique AI Chat mannequin: Choose the Settings icon to the precise of the chosen mannequin title, select your required mannequin, after which choose the “Start a new chat” button. Experiment with the accessible fashions by prompting every with a wide range of questions and duties. You’ll discover that not solely will the response particulars differ, but in addition that the format could differ as effectively.
Accomplished with a thread or prepared to debate a unique subject? Choose the hearth icon subsequent to the immediate field to clear the dialog. This erases all content material in your chat, so be sure you’ve copied (and saved) any generated content material from the chat beforehand.
Lastly, one main distinction between normal search and AI chat is that you could proceed the dialog and ask follow-up questions. For instance, a typical DuckDuckGo search will present a set of hyperlinks and presumably some key info. If you need a unique set of hyperlinks, you’d re-do your search. With AI Chat, you may ask a complete collection of follow-up inquiries to immediate the system to elaborate on a specific element or present further choices.
AI Chat limitations and alternate options
One notable limitation of AI Chat and all 4 accessible fashions: They lack entry to present web content material. The responses are restricted to information accessible as of their coaching date. So, whenever you need to know details about upcoming or latest occasions, swap to a typical search.
A number of net browser-accessible alternate options to AI Chat are programs similar to:
- OpenAI’s ChatGPT.
- Microsoft’s Copilot.
- Google’s Gemini.
- Anthropic’s Claude.
- Meta’s Llama.
One other different is to obtain, set up, and configure a big language mannequin system, similar to Jan, Ollama, or Nomic’s GPT4All. Those that need entry to the highest-rated AI chat programs will seemingly favor to pay — round $20 per 30 days in every case — for ChatGPT Plus, Gemini Superior, or Claude Professional.