DuckDuckGo has expanded its subscription offering to include access to the latest AI models through its Duck.ai chatbot, the company announced Thursday.
Free and Paid AI Access
Duck.ai is free to use and gives users access to models such as Anthropic’s Claude 3.5 Haiku, Meta’s Llama 4 Scout, Mistral AI’s Mistral Small 3 24B, and OpenAI’s GPT-4o mini.
For those subscribed to DuckDuckGo’s $9.99 per month plan, newer and larger models are unlocked. These include OpenAI’s GPT-4o and GPT-5, Anthropic’s Claude Sonnet 4, and Meta’s Llama Maverick.
“These bigger models are better at following detailed instructions, maintaining context through extended chats, and delivering deeper, more nuanced responses,” DuckDuckGo explained in a company post. “The DuckDuckGo subscription offers a way to use some of these models, but with more privacy.”
The addition of AI access makes DuckDuckGo’s plan an alternative for people who want multiple models without being tied to a single provider. Quora’s Poe platform, for example, also offers access to several AI models, with its subscription starting at $5 per month.
DuckDuckGo says it plans to introduce higher-tier subscriptions in the future that will support “larger and more highly advanced models.” The company has not clarified whether usage limits apply to the current plan.
Author’s Opinion
DuckDuckGo’s AI strategy is smart because it positions privacy as the differentiator in a crowded chatbot market. While competitors like Poe or direct subscriptions to OpenAI or Anthropic may be cheaper, they don’t carry the same promise of minimal tracking and tighter data safeguards. For users who value privacy as much as performance, paying a premium for DuckDuckGo’s bundle could feel justified, even if the company is still catching up to bigger players in scale and ecosystem.
Featured image credit: Dawit via Unsplash
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