Discussion

Kagi Assistant standalone subscription

EbNar: From the thread on kagifeedback.org:"As we prepare to launch Kagi Assistant as a standalone subscription, we're considering changes to how it will be available on the Pro and Starter plans (Search subscriptions).Currently these plans let you use the Kagi Assistant each month up to the AI cost value included in your subscription, similar to how it works on Ultimate. The change we're consideringn would turn this into more of a trial where you'd still have access to the Assistant, but only up to a fixed usage cap. Once you hit that cap, you'd need to subscribe to either the Ultimate plan or the Kagi Assistant's own subscription to keep using it (same mechanism we already have for Search)."

kagi_2026: This paragraph is clearly written by a recovering AI addict. I'm glad he's writing for himself but the prose is really sloppy.> Similar to how it works on Ultimate> consideringn> more of a trial where you'd still have access to the AssistantThis guy can't write on his own without AI anymore.Start reading books or you're going to look stupid to the people around you.

embedding-shape: Guess that serves as a signal that this move from Kagi isn't so bad, if typos is the biggest and greatetst criticism you can come up with as a reply.

sph: Good. I'm a paying user from day one, and I never used, nor want to see any AI features on my search engine. I'd use Google if I cared about any of that stuff.Honestly, I just want my money to be used to improve good old match-keywords-against-index search.

EbNar: Well, good for you, I guess. But for the rest of us who use the Assistant this would be a net downgrade, AKA paying the same for less.

shaky-carrousel: For the rest of us that deeply distrust and despise the anti-ethical and wasteful assistants is an upgrade.

EbNar: Friendly reminder that you're not forced to use it. "I despise soccer, so soccer should disappear".

Valodim: Kagi is unfortunately in a tough spot, imo.I'm a happy subscriber, and it's certainly a big improvement over Google search. But the internet just isn't the same place it was five years ago. And as search results (for non-navigational queries) are becoming less useful by the day, I find myself asking AI to do it for me more.There's a lot to like about Kagi, but they'll probably have to reinvent themselves if they want to grow beyond the niche that high level internet search will probably become.

denkmoon: Why though. Why does it need to grow beyond a niche premium option? As long as they’re paying the bills and everyone is happy why not just let a good thing keep chugging along.

BoredPositron: While the assistant is a decent add on, it fails as a standalone product. It just isn't in the same league as Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, or even LeChat, and I’d hate to see them waste too much development time on it.

Apreche: Exactly. Same as you I am just paying for search. I never used the assistant, and never will. Right now Kagi is good enough at search that it would be annoying to lose. But if I was forced to go back to Google I could survive by using adblock. I really wish Kagi would just put all their engineering efforts on search to make it so good that I couldn’t possibly live without it.I don’t need a new browser. I don’t need a replacement for Google Maps, since Google Maps is actually good and Kagi will never even catch up to Apple Maps. I don’t need any AI trash.Just have everybody work on the search engine to make it is faster, more reliable, and free of content farms or slop. That is the only reason I’m paying for Kagi.

leokennis: I admire and applaud Kagi for what they are trying to be.But on the AI front, the Assistant is simply worse than using for example Gemini or ChatGPT directly. It is slower, it cannot generate images etc.

imjustmsk: Wouldn't a a feature to turn all AI features work? You can turn of all AI from Brave search and duckduckgo and for Google just use startpage.

cyanydeez: He's say splitting the pot for AI features reduces the value of improved search quality.I'd rather that too. Kagi should try to curate like a Librarian and not some kind of oracle. They're not going to capture people with offering AI assistants. They will capture people by filtering out all the garbage places like Google throw into their results to get ad dollars.

littlecranky67: I didn't renew my Kagi subscription, as I am now mostly using AI based search (google, chat.bing.com, perplexity). Search engine wise, Kagi was superior but it is just that traditional search engines are less and less needed with the rise of AI.BUT Kagi is in a good spot, as they have their user data (and the feedback/upvote/downvote/blacklist feature) to train their own models on. Maybe their AI will one day be a superior search. Especially when the big ones like Google will start to enshittify the free AI tier with ads, or SEO-like AI manipulation on Google will take off.

cardanome: You still have to live in a world where LLMs exist and are based on the stolen labor of millions of people and are actively destroying the livelihood of people, our environment and democracy.

type0: They could use AI is to remove web pages with AI generated spam content in search results. I don't know how accurate that could work. For technical blogs there should be a lens that ranks GPG signed articles higher, is that even possible?

petcat: ai can use gpg too though

schrectacular: Why is this on a whole separate domain and why can't I use my Kagi account to comment? Why do I have to sign up here? Why haven't I seen any messaging from Kagi directly about this? This seems really weird.

type0: Well, the solution is easy if users just paid for AI features separately.

mpalmer: Amen. "Growth" is literally product cancer

TACD: Soccer is not destroying the planet and making basic computer hardware unaffordable.

gonzalohm: I honestly think that AI goes against Kagis's main purpose. I see it as a tool to search the Internet. Carefully craft what you think is relevant, try to remove as much AI generated crap from your results, etc.By using AI you are doing the opposite. You are letting some random AI get the results for you.That's assuming Kagi assistant is the AI that searches the Internet. I don't know, I have never used it. I use Kagi search every day though

mpalmer: "Asking AI" is doing a lot of work there.The people who pay for Kagi do so for very specific reasons, often because they know what "asking AI" really means for their privacy.

card_zero: I am interested in your manifesto

plutokras: I’m also fine with the change. Claude is my go-to for research as the standalone app and shortcut are very convenient.The Kagi team should focus on the core product; that’s what I’m paying for. I stopped being a ProtonMail customer once they began chasing side projects instead of polishing their actual offering. I hope Kagi doesn't go down that same route.

arch-ninja: Agreed. I LOVE Kagi as a search engine - so long as it answers queries in under 2s with no ads, I'm a very happy customer. I don't mind if they flirt with LLMs, but if the LLM work detracts from the search work they will lose me as a paying customer. If the LLM work slows down search results I also lose the only thing I pay for - search result response time and correctness.

Yeri: I always thought the browser, coworking space (https://hub.kagi.com/), and mail (https://kagimail.com/) are a distraction.I've been a paying customer since 04/2022, and have the early adopter badge. I was easily doing 600-800 searches/month, and now I do 400-300 searches. I think that's the reality. More and more people are asking ChatGPT or whatever for search.

niam: I didn't consider that bundling Search & Assistant maybe puts them in a tricky spot among some users who revile LLM features, and others who will utilize them to the cap. To the degree that the former is subsidizing the latter, or costing them customers (probably not a ton): I can see why separating the two offerings makes sense.Though I'm sympathetic to the users for whom this is basically a strict downgrade in featureset.I'm a current Ultimate subscriber who stands to lose nothing. I use Assistant as my main non-coding LLM UI for mostly inertia reasons. I guess I'd be happy to see this translate to more Assistant features, since it's definitely lagged behind other webUIs in this space, but such ambitions aren't really mentioned in this thread.

keysersoze33: I've been a Kagi Pro user for several years now, and to be honest, the models from the pro tier aren't that useful compared to the free versions of Gemini & ChatGPT.For me, I pay for Kagi pro for search without Google/Bing enshittification, their Translate (which I use quite often while I'm learning German/working in German), and their summarizer. I pay for Claude, and also occasionally use OpenRouter for my AI needs.

senko: I use Kagi search all the time. I often use the Quick Answer feature (append "?" at the end of the query, gives an AI overview/answer, then standard search results below). I never use the full Assistant - I have ChatGPT and Claude for chatbot use cases.I like Quick Answer because of its ligtweight UX. Ctrl-T for a new tab in any browser window, type the question, get the answer. This is faster and mentally lighter than switching to a chatbot, typing the question there and answering. If I'm to use the chatbot, I don't see a special need to use Kagi's.(my €0.02 as a paid user)

lemontheme: This is generally how I use it too. Every now and then I click through to the assistant for follow-up questions. I appreciate that it’s there, even if I use it infrequently. The default kimi model gives surprisingly good answers too