Security News > 2023 > March > DuckDuckGo launches AI-powered search query answering tool
Privacy-focused search engine DuckDuckGo has launched the first beta version of DuckAssist, an AI-assisted feature that writes accurate summaries to answer users' search queries.
DuckAssist uses OpenAI's natural language technology to generate answers to user's search queries at the top of the search results page, making responses more direct than traditional search results.
Contrary to other generative AI search assistants that use input from thousands of websites, DuckAssist only sources information from Wikipedia and Britannica, hoping to prevent incorrect information from being used when generating answers.
"You shouldn't expect to see DuckAssist on many of your searches yet, but the combination of generative AI and Wikipedia in DuckAssist means we can vastly increase the number of Instant Answers we can provide, and when it does pop up, it will likely help you find the information you want faster than ever." - DuckDuckGo.
As for search query anonymity, which sits at the core of DuckDuckGo's values, the company assures that DuckAssist is fully integrated into its private search engine; hence, user queries or browsing history aren't logged.
Some data has to be transmitted to search content partners like OpenAI and Anthropic, but no personally identifiable information or IP addresses are ever shared with those entities.