DuckDuckGo’s latest service allows anonymous interactions with AI chatbots from major providers like OpenAI, Anthropic, Meta, and Mistral, ensuring user data privacy by removing metadata and IP addresses.
DuckDuckGo Launches Anonymized AI Chat Service
On June 6, 2024, DuckDuckGo introduced “AI Chat,” a service enabling anonymous interactions with four large language models (LLMs) from OpenAI, Anthropic, Meta, and Mistral. This new feature allows users to engage with AI chatbots without installing software or creating accounts, aiming to maintain user privacy.
The AI models available are OpenAI’s GPT-3.5 Turbo, Anthropic’s Claude 3 Haiku, Meta’s Llama 3, and Mistral’s Mixtral 8x7B. Accessible via the DuckDuckGo search engine, direct links, or “!ai” and “!chat” shortcuts, the service anonymizes user data by removing metadata and IP addresses. DuckDuckGo ensures that conversations are not used to train AI models and are deleted by the providers within 30 days.
Despite these privacy measures, the models can produce inaccurate information, as they are mid-range LLMs, and user’s data is transmitted to remote servers for processing. Advanced models and larger usage limits may be offered in future paid plans.
This development follows DuckDuckGo’s ongoing mission to protect user privacy online while delivering useful digital tools.
