AI ANSWER ENGINE
What is DuckDuckGo Search Assist?
DuckDuckGo Search Assist is an AI answer engine run by DuckDuckGo. It is the AI answer feature inside DuckDuckGo search. On structured data, this research records the stance “Its pages say nothing about it”. Its pages do not limit it to listed countries.
Last checked November 10, 2026 · 3 sources
- Type
- AI answer engine
- Run by
- DuckDuckGo
- Results come from
- The AI answer feature inside DuckDuckGo search
- Recorded markets
- Not limited to listed countries in its pages
- Where its AI chatbot share is highest
- StatCounter does not track DuckDuckGo Search Assist in its AI chatbot figures.
- AI chatbot share, worldwide
- StatCounter does not track DuckDuckGo Search Assist in its AI chatbot figures.
- Structured data formats
- None documented
- Rich result types
- None on record
Where does DuckDuckGo Search Assist get its results?
Not stated for Search Assist. DuckAssistBot fetches pages in real time for AI-assisted answers[1], and the Search Assist help page does not say how source pages are chosen[3]. For DuckDuckGo search as a whole, traditional links and images come largely from Bing alongside DuckDuckGo's own crawler and indexes[2]. See the DuckDuckGo page.
Engines and providers it names
DuckDuckGoSame company
The AI answer feature inside DuckDuckGo search[1]
Conditions recorded: Same operator. Search Assist is the AI answer feature inside DuckDuckGo search and has its own fetcher, DuckAssistBot. No direct quote taken; paraphrased from the page.
Engines that use results from DuckDuckGo Search Assist
The research records no engine that takes its general results from DuckDuckGo Search Assist or is built on it by the same company.
Which countries use DuckDuckGo Search Assist?
StatCounter does not track DuckDuckGo Search Assist in its AI chatbot figures. None of the labels in its AI chatbot figures for October 2026 maps to DuckDuckGo Search Assist in this research. StatCounter Global Stats
Recorded markets
The research records no country limit for DuckDuckGo Search Assist: its pages do not limit it to listed countries.
Does DuckDuckGo Search Assist use structured data?
Stance recordedIts pages say nothing about it
The Search Assist help page says answers are generated from cited web content and does not mention structured data or schema.org. The DuckAssistBot page[1] and the sources page[2] are silent too.[3]
| Format | Documented support | What the research records |
|---|---|---|
| JSON-LD | Not documented | Not mentioned on the DuckAssistBot page[1] or the Search Assist help page[3]. Not documented is not the same as not supported.[1] |
| Microdata | Not documented | Not mentioned on the DuckAssistBot page[1] or the Search Assist help page[3]. Not documented is not the same as not supported.[1] |
| RDFa | Not documented | Not mentioned on the DuckAssistBot page[1] or the Search Assist help page[3]. Not documented is not the same as not supported.[1] |
| Open Graph | Not documented | Not mentioned on the DuckAssistBot page[1] or the Search Assist help page[3]. Not documented is not the same as not supported.[1] |
| Microformats | Not documented | Not mentioned on the DuckAssistBot page[1] or the Search Assist help page[3]. Not documented is not the same as not supported.[1] |
| Twitter Cards | Not documented | Not mentioned on the DuckAssistBot page[1] or the Search Assist help page[3]. Not documented is not the same as not supported.[1] |
“Not documented” means the pages read do not say; it does not mean the format is ignored.
Rich resultsThe research records no rich result type for DuckDuckGo Search Assist.
How does DuckDuckGo Search Assist crawl the web?
The research lists 2 crawler tokens for DuckDuckGo Search Assist: the names a site uses in robots.txt rules, with what each one does where the source says.
DuckAssistBotCrawls pages in real time for DuckDuckGo's AI-assisted answers (Search Assist), which cite their sources. DuckDuckGo says the data is not used to train AI models. follows robots.txt.[1]
DuckDuckBotDuckDuckGo's own search crawler, named on the sources page as supporting its results alongside many indexes. The pages read for this research give no robots.txt sentence, user agent string or link to Search Assist for it. See the DuckDuckGo page. robots.txt behavior not stated.[2]
How do I test my markup for DuckDuckGo Search Assist?
The research records no markup testing tool of its own for DuckDuckGo Search Assist.
Inject the World
Test a page for DuckDuckGo Search Assist
See what the research records for DuckDuckGo Search Assist against the structured data on your page.
What does DuckDuckGo Search Assist ask of site owners?
Guidelines
- robots.txt
- DuckAssistBot respects robots.txt. A Disallow rule for it takes effect after 72 hours, and opting out does not affect organic rankings.[1]
- ai training
- DuckDuckGo says the data DuckAssistBot collects is not used to train AI models.[1]
- citations
- Search Assist writes a short answer from web content it finds, and answers "always link directly to one or two sources".[3]
- feature controls
- Search Assist is optional. Users choose how often it appears: often, sometimes (the default), on demand or never. The help page gives no publisher opt-out beyond its link to the DuckAssistBot page.[3]
- models
- The help page names OpenAI and Anthropic only for Duck.ai, the separate chat service. It does not say which models write Search Assist answers.[3]
- search sources
- For DuckDuckGo search in general, traditional links and images come largely from Bing, and DuckDuckGo also runs its own crawler and many indexes. The page does not cover Search Assist.[2]
What could not be verified?
These claims about DuckDuckGo Search Assist came up in the research, but no page that could be read confirms them. They are kept apart, and nothing above rests on them.
How Search Assist picks the pages it cites, and whether it draws on Bing results, DuckDuckGo's own indexes or both.
Why it is open: No primary statement on the retrieval source for Search Assist.
Search Assist reads structured data from the pages it cites.
Why it is open: Not documented either way.
Sources
The pages the research used for DuckDuckGo Search Assist, numbered as cited above. Accessed November 10, 2026 unless shown.
- 1.Is DuckAssistBot related to DuckDuckGo? · DuckDuckGo
- 2.Where do DuckDuckGo search results come from? · DuckDuckGo
- 3.About DuckDuckGo Search Assist - DuckDuckGo Help Pages · DuckDuckGo
Market share figures: StatCounter Global Stats, AI chatbot market share, October 2026, licensed CC BY-SA 3.0.