Privacy-focused search engine DuckDuckGo just added an AI-powered assistant to its product line.
How to get good answers from an AI chatbot?
The aptly named DuckAssist pulls relevant information from Wikipedia to provide concise, accurately sourced answers to user questions. The information is displayed directly above the actual search results, allowing you to dig deeper for more context and nuance.
This technology is strictly intended to answer simple questions, so it lacks some of the chatbot je ne sais quoi you’ll find in competitors. In other words, DuckAssist won’t be spreading its love for you anytime soon, but it will tell you a variety of details about Antarctica (or anything else you ask).
Due to the nature of DuckAssist's sources (Wikipedia and Brittanica), the service excels at simple questions with definitive answers. However, the dataset is refreshed every few weeks via a Wikipedia download, so it can struggle with up-to-date queries.