Quick Tip: How to Turn off DuckDuckGo’s Artificial Intelligence (AI) Assist Feature for Search

If you use DuckDuckGo as your search engine, be aware the Artificial Intelligence (AI) Assist feature is turned on by default.

For people who don’t want AI used in their DuckDuckGo search results, you’ll need to turn AI Assist off in each of your browsers (desktop and mobile) as well as in the DuckDuckGo app.

Which is what I did.

Based on bad search results using AI, I’m currently not a fan of AI search.

So I turned if off in browsers where I use DuckDuckGo (I also use Startpage for search).

And I turned it off for a family member who uses the DuckDuckGo Android app.

Read on to learn how to turn it off for web browsers and on Android. Sorry, iOS users, I don’t have any iOS devices. But I suspect instructions are similar.

Web Browser

1. Visit DuckDuckGo
2. Select the three short horizontal lines near the top of the page (they may display in the top right)
3. Select Settings > AI Features
4. Turn off each of the features
5. Select Save and Exit

Android Mobile Browser and DuckDuckGo Android App

1. Search for any word or phrase
2. In the search results page, find the horizontal navigation (above search results) with topics for All, Images, Videos, etc. There’s an icon at the end of the navigation that looks like two pins with circles. Select the icon.
3. In Settings, select All Search Settings
4. Select AI Features
5. Turn off each of the features
6. Select Save and Exit

A Few Things to Know

When I close Firefox Focus, my settings for DuckDuckGo AI Assist aren’t saved.

For folks who clear browser cache regularly (which deletes cookies), your settings will be deleted and you’ll need to turn off AI Assist features again.

If you’d rather not deal with configuring DuckDuckGo settings, here is a bookmarklet URL with AI Assist settings turned off.

Hat tip to @LockDownYourLife, who published a now deleted Mastodon post about DuckDuckGo’s AI Assist and how to change settings in the browser.

And hat tip to all their followers who shared tips on mobile settings and apps.

I’m grateful to folks who share tips on Mastodon, and want to document those tips outside of Mastodon so more people can benefit from the recommendations.