🇺🇸 USA · Kagi Assistant
Status: 🟩 COMPLETE 🟦 LIVING Plain-English tagline: Kagi’s premium AI assistant built into Kagi’s paid privacy-focused search engine. Pick-your-model (Claude, GPT, Gemini, Llama, Mistral) AI with zero tracking and zero ads — for people willing to pay for a privacy-respecting search + AI experience.
Front-matter facts
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Vendor | Kagi Inc (Palo Alto, USA — small independent company; founded by Vladimir Prelovac) |
| Country / origin | 🇺🇸 USA |
| Recommended for Australian users? | ✅ Yes — fully accessible from AUS, AUD card accepted, the strongest privacy posture among paid AI/search tools |
| Privacy summary | Kagi never trains on your queries, never sells data, never serves ads, uses anonymous routing to underlying model providers. Among the most privacy-aligned commercial AI products available. |
| Free tier | None — Kagi is paid-only by design (the “you’re not the product” pitch) |
| Paid tiers | Kagi Starter US10/mo (unlimited searches + Quick Answer AI) · Kagi Ultimate US$25/mo (full Assistant with all models) |
| First released | Kagi search launched 2022; Assistant launched 2023 |
| Last reviewed | 2026-06-26 |
| Official site | https://kagi.com |
What it is
Kagi is a small independent search engine that competes with Google by being paid instead of ad-supported. The promise: you pay a subscription, in exchange you get unbiased search results, no tracking, no ads, no behavioural profile, no AI Overviews trying to keep you on Google’s surface. Kagi’s user base is small but extremely loyal — typically privacy-conscious technical users.
Kagi Assistant is the AI chat add-on bundled with Kagi Ultimate (and limited “Quick Answer” with Professional). It lets you chat with multiple frontier models from inside the Kagi search interface, with the same privacy commitments as Kagi search itself.
Available models in Assistant include:
- Claude Sonnet 4.6 / Claude Opus 4.8 (Anthropic)
- GPT-5 / GPT-5 mini (OpenAI)
- Gemini 3 Pro / Gemini 3 Flash (Google)
- Llama 4 70B (Meta)
- Mistral Large (Mistral)
- Open-weight models hosted by Kagi
You pick the model per-conversation. Quality depends on the model you pick — same flagship models everyone else uses, just accessed through Kagi’s privacy-routing.
What you’d use it for
- Daily search + AI as your primary tool if you can afford the subscription and value privacy strongly
- Switching between models without paying for each one separately — Claude Opus AND GPT-5 AND Gemini 3 Pro in one US$25/month subscription is meaningful savings if you’d otherwise pay for two or three separately
- Privacy-respecting AI for sensitive research where you don’t want behavioural profiling
- Quick Answer mode — short AI-summarised answers above search results (Professional tier)
- Custom search experience — Kagi lets you boost / block specific sites, customise ranking, build “lenses” (filtered search views)
How to sign up + first 5 minutes from Australia
- Go to
kagi.com. - Click Try Kagi for free — get 100 free searches without paying.
- After the trial, pick a plan. For Assistant, you want Kagi Ultimate (US$25/mo).
- Pay with AUD card (foreign-transaction fee may apply unless using Wise / Revolut / fee-free card).
- Set Kagi as your default search engine in your browser:
- Chrome / Edge: Settings → Search Engine → set Kagi
- Safari: requires installing Kagi extension
- Firefox: Settings → Search → set Kagi
- Try the Assistant via the chat icon on the Kagi search results page.
What it costs — what you actually get
Starter — US$5/month
- 300 searches/month
- No Assistant access (only Quick Answer occasionally)
Professional — US$10/month
- Unlimited searches
- Quick Answer AI (short AI summaries above results)
- No full Assistant
Ultimate — US45 incl GST)
- Everything in Professional
- Full Assistant — pick from Claude / GPT / Gemini / Llama / Mistral
- Higher daily Assistant message limits
- Premium routing
- Access to Kagi-hosted open-weight models
Family Plan — US$30/month for 6 family members on Ultimate
- Great value if multiple household members would use Kagi
- Each gets full Ultimate features
Annual prepay discount (~10-20%) — pay yearly for a price cut
How it compares to alternatives
| Capability | Kagi Ultimate | Perplexity Pro | ChatGPT Plus | Claude Pro |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pick-your-model | Yes — 5+ frontier models | Yes (Pro) | No (GPT only) | No (Claude only) |
| Privacy posture | Strongest (paid, no tracking) | Strong | Moderate | Moderate |
| Search-first | Yes | Yes | Add-on | Add-on |
| Customisable search | Yes (boost/block/lenses) | Limited | No | No |
| Combined search + chat | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Cost | US$25 | US$20 | US$20 | US$20 |
If you’re paying for multiple AI subscriptions to access different models, Kagi Ultimate may be a cost-effective bundle. If you primarily want one model with deep features (Claude Projects + Skills, ChatGPT Operator + Sora), the focused alternatives are richer.
Privacy / data handling
Kagi’s business model is the privacy promise:
- No advertising — search results are ranked on quality, not paid placement
- No tracking — your queries are not tied to a behavioural profile
- No training on your data — Kagi forwards queries to underlying providers under no-training agreements
- No data sales — small subscription company, no incentive
- Open-source where possible — parts of Kagi’s stack are open
For sensitive search + AI use cases, Kagi is arguably the strongest commercial option.
Recent changes
- 2026: Model lineup updated with Claude Sonnet 4.6 / Opus 4.8, GPT-5 family, Gemini 3 Pro / Flash, Llama 4
- 2025: Family Plan added; Annual discount expanded
- 2024: Assistant expanded with more models
- 2023: Assistant launched
- 2022: Kagi search launched (was previously closed beta)
Gotchas
- Paid only. No free tier. Trial gives 100 searches.
- Small company. Kagi is independent; no major investor backing. Reliability is good but it’s not Google-scale.
- Subscription fatigue. If you already pay for ChatGPT Plus + Claude Pro + Gemini AI Pro, Kagi Ultimate may be additive cost rather than substitutive. Consider Kagi as a replacement for some of those.
- Some features locked behind tier upgrades. Quick Answer is Professional+, full Assistant is Ultimate.
- Smaller user base means smaller community for tips / extensions / integrations vs Google’s Chrome ecosystem.
- No video gen / image gen / voice mode — Kagi is search + chat, not a multimodal AI product.
See also
- DuckDuckGo AI Chat 🟩 🟦 — free privacy alternative
- Brave Leo 🟩 🟦 — browser-integrated privacy alternative
- Perplexity 🟩 🟦 — AI search with similar pick-your-model
- ChatGPT 🟩 🟦
- Claude.ai consumer 🟩 🟦
- Gemini 🟩 🟦
- privacy-and-data-training.md 🟩 🟦