Kagi’s “Assistant” feature, previously only available to Ultimate subscribers, is now rolling out to all tiers — including the free trial tier. The feature gives you access to a range of different LLMs for both chatting and web-searching purposes.
If you don’t know much about Kagi, it’s a paid search engine that borrows its name from the Japanese word for “key.” The concept is simple — with Google, you pay for the service by allowing ads and data collection. With Kagi, you pay for the service with money to get a private and ad-free experience.
There are also open-source and free-to-use search engines out there that focus on data privacy, but they nearly always have ads and they nearly always struggle to get the funding they need to improve their services and expand their features at a decent rate.
As a search engine that’s funded by its users, Kagi can axe the ads, keep your data locked up safe, and bring you plenty of new and polished features to improve your search experience.
Kagi’s default homepage is a big old Google-style search bar, as most search engines tend to have, but when you switch to Assistant mode, you’ll get an LLM-style chat interface instead. You can choose the AI model you want to use from the drop-down box and use the toggle next to it to control whether the model has access to the web or not.
Without the web, you can use the chatbot just as you would normally. With the web, the AI model will be powered by Kagi Search, allowing you to ask anything you want and get generated responses complete with hyperlinked references.
Since Kagi is a paid service, the higher your subscription tier, the more you get. The Ultimate tier gets access to the best AI models along with unlimited interactions and searches. It costs $25 a month and is mostly aimed at professionals and super AI fans.
Apparently, the average Google user searches three or four times a day or around 100 times a month, so Kagi believes most people probably only need the $5 Starter plan, which provides 300 searches and AI interactions per month. This tier gets access to the “standard” AI models including:
If you want unlimited searches and interactions but you’re not bothered about the top-tier AI models, then you can choose the Professional plan for $10 a month.
The trial tier will also have access to the Assistant feature, allowing anyone to try it out for a total of 100 searches and interactions. Kagi also has an interesting “Fair Pricing” system that doesn’t charge you if you don’t use it. If you pay your fee at the start of the month but then don’t use the service, you’ll receive a full credit to your account to pay for the next month.
Paying for a search engine can definitely seem odd at first, but these services have never actually been free — they’ve always been powered by advertising. And as time has gone on, tracking and data collection practices have become part of the game as well. I’m personally pretty intrigued by this whole thing, so I’m going to subscribe and use this service for a while to see what it’s like.
The man leading one of the most prominent and most powerful AI companies on the planet has just revealed what it is about AI that keeps him awake at n
Earlier this year, an uplifting story detailed how a mother turned to ChatGPT and discovered that her son was suffering from a rare neurological disor
OpenAI, the makers of ChatGPT, have performed something of an about-face after fans were upset that it deleted the older models to only allow users to
A new AAAI (Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence) study with hundreds of contributing AI researchers has been published this mon
If you bought into the promise of a new AI-charged Copilot+ PC with the latest-gen Intel or AMD processor, and found a few tricks missing, the long wa
OpenAIFollowing its U.S. debut in January, OpenAI’s Operator AI agent will soon be expanding to eight new nations, the company announced on Friday.“O
Microsoft is set to get a major AI update and is preparing its server capacity to support the next iteration of OpenAI’s models. As OpenAI CEO, Sam Al
Alibaba has just unveiled its latest reasoning model, and it seems that DeepSeek and OpenAI might have something to worry about — at least if all of A
We are a comprehensive and trusted information platform dedicated to delivering high-quality content across a wide range of topics, including society, technology, business, health, culture, and entertainment.
From breaking news to in-depth reports, we adhere to the principles of accuracy and diverse perspectives, helping readers find clarity and reliability in today’s fast-paced information landscape.
Our goal is to be a dependable source of knowledge for every reader—making information not only accessible but truly trustworthy. Looking ahead, we will continue to enhance our content and services, connecting the world and delivering value.
