11 ms·

Kagi is contemplating the removal of the assistant from its professional tier

84 points by EbNar 7mo ago

type0 7mo ago
Well, the solution is easy if users just paid for AI features separately.
EbNar 7mo ago
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 7mo ago
  [flagged]
  - embedding-shape 7mo ago
    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.
    - kagi_2026 7mo ago
      [flagged]
      - lambdas 7mo ago
        Ah, but only a truly great writer could have come up with: > Start reading books or you're going to look stupid to the people around you Wherein the prose wasn’t at all sloppy, the tautology was certainly intentional; the implied audience of “look stupid” could be to people entirely absent of the vicinity!
      - embedding-shape 7mo ago
        Make grand assumptions about other HN users without knowing anything else but their HN comments, I betcha you won't find a better past-time for internet strangers :)
  - syeare 7mo ago
    Even after you pointed out specific mistakes, I fail to understand how the writing is indicative of AI over-reliance?
sph 7mo ago
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 7mo ago
  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 7mo ago
    For the rest of us that deeply distrust and despise the anti-ethical and wasteful assistants is an upgrade.
    - EbNar 7mo ago
      Friendly reminder that you're not forced to use it. "I despise soccer, so soccer should disappear".
      - TACD 7mo ago
        Soccer is not destroying the planet and making basic computer hardware unaffordable.
        EbNar 7mo ago
        You're looking at the finger and missing the Moon.
      - cardanome 7mo ago
        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.
raincole 7mo ago
I know I'll sound like a Google shill, but I really don't know how this could compete against what Google AI Studio offers for now. Studio even has free quota (while being completely opaque). I once feel Kagi is some fresh air that we need for search engine. But now it seems to be more and more directly competing against the other LLM web summery products and imo Google/Gemini is light-seconds ahead in that space. The AI Overview is an ultra water downed version of it and it's still somewhat usable. Perhaps this move is signaling that they'll be back focusing on search itself more though (I hope so).
Valodim 7mo ago
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.
- arch-ninja 7mo ago
  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 7mo ago
    I always thought the browser, coworking space (https://hub.kagi.com/ https://hub.kagi.com/), and mail (https://kagimail.com/ 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.
- littlecranky67 7mo ago
  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.
- denkmoon 7mo ago
willis936 7mo ago
To me this seems fine. You'd run out of tokens pretty quick without ultimate anyway, so it is a small cross section of users this affects. I am interested to learn if anything else is coming besides a billing change. Like will ultimate/assistant subscribers get access to MCP?
- EbNar 7mo ago
  Well, no... I use maybe 1/5 to 1/3 of may month allowance on Assistant. It's nice to have. And I subscribed to Kagi also because of it. So, the Assistant going away would mean my expensive Duo subscription going away as well.
cyanydeez 7mo ago
I recommend Kagi focus on being a sidecar to AIs rather than try to offer it in any way; I'm hoping the API comes out and I can get proper search results for my local LLM. Unless they're building their own LLMs, best not to annoy people who already see random LLMs everywhere.
leokennis 7mo ago
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.
- EbNar 7mo ago
  That's why I don't think anybody is going to pay for the Assistant alone.
- nicce 7mo ago
  It is not worse I would say. It uses neutral system prompt by default, whereas Gemini and ChatGPT will please you too much to mislead you badly. Also the base search is much batter. You can control the search while with Gemini, for example, you can't.
- mpalmer 7mo ago
  On the other hand, it doesn't monetize any of the data you give. Six of one, half dozen of the other, yeah? Re: image gen... it's a search engine. Why would I need my refrigerator to toast my bread?
  - fc417fc802 7mo ago
    Because at least for my own usage of Google the LLM started out as an interactive search with substantially better context filtering that could tune the results to my desired technical level. However I promptly started just having it explain the subject matter to me rather than spending 30+ minutes consulting various docs and forum posts because it makes for an excellent secretary/tutor combo provided you vigilantly watch for misinformation. So to answer your question, while charts might not be particularly useful for a search engine a tutor certainly benefits from them.
  - willis936 7mo ago
    The privacy buffer between the LLM providers and the user is a large part of the appeal. Having it hooked up to a search engine outside of the data broker space makes it uniquely attractive. Given that window dressing, having toasted bread in a kitchen that isn't selling my data is something I want.
BoredPositron 7mo ago
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.
QuadmasterXLII 7mo ago
The big advantage of this is that instead of getting commentariat feedback, you will see people’s wallet votes on whether they value kagi for being the best of like 6 options for search, or for being a distinctly middle of the pack option in a field of millions of thin llm wrappers.
treesknees 7mo ago
I’ve used it quite a bit, but just as a natural language frontend to their search engine. I don’t see it as a true alternative to generic chat bots like Claude or ChatGPT, and certainly not a coding tool. I would likely not subscribe to Assistant.
- omnimus 7mo ago
  You can look at it other way around - why to have ChatGPT when you can use chatgpt through kagi. One of the advantages being that they claim to be "privacy" layer that doesn't give other companies metadata about you.
gonzalohm 7mo ago
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
schrectacular 7mo ago
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.
- Yeri 7mo ago
  Those domains have been around since forever (also https://orionfeedback.org https://orionfeedback.org). I guess it was easier to just set up a new platform instead of integrating it, or building something from scratch. I haven't checked in a while, but I'm sure there's been conversations about this on discord as well (https://help.kagi.com/kagi/support-and-community/discord-server.html https://help.kagi.com/kagi/support-and-community/discord-ser...). I'm too busy to read up on every little thing, so I'm glad this happens elsewhere, off-site, and I just get the big changes through my RSS feed.
1313ed01 7mo ago
I use the assistant daily, often instead of search. The search is good, but the sad fact is searching www has been getting less interesting fast and there simply isn't much of value to find (maybe if they added an option to search in the Wayback Machine? I would pay extra for that!). Adding a LLM on top of search results and to fire off multiple searches makes it possible to sometimes squeeze a little bit of actually useful information out of the cesspool that is modern web. Without the Assistant I would probably go back down to the lowest kagi tier.
senko 7mo ago
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 7mo ago
  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
- omnimus 7mo ago
  You can add some "bang search" (like your ? for quick answer) to use the other models Kagi supports like Kimi. The quick model is there to be mainly quick.
- efskap 7mo ago
  Luckily they're not changing that part. > Kagi Assistant's web tool uses Kagi Search, and that has nothing to do with this subscription plans discussion, we're not changing anything there. The same applies to LLM-powered features in Kagi Search, like Quick Answer.
hootz 7mo ago
To be honest, while it's great that it uses Kagi as its search engine and that improves the results, I find myself more and more using Claude and Gemini over Assistant while still using Kagi as my main manual search engine. They should probably focus more on their main product instead of LLMs.
tomrod 7mo ago
Huh, I didn't realize they had a standalone AI mode. I've used the summarizer a few times and found it to be occasionally useful.
sdoering 7mo ago
If they remove a feature (even if I am not using it) while keeping the price the same - why should I stay a customer? I have a contract. And at least in Germany one party to a contract can not just alter the terms of the contract. They need to cancel the existing contract and offer a new one. And I would not need to accept the new one. Yes, I would not be using Kagi anymore. But why should I have a business relationship with a company that does not honor the contractual obligations it entered into?
- fc417fc802 7mo ago
  Presumably they would discontinue it at the end of a billing cycle? Or have you entered into a long term contract with them?
niam 7mo ago
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 would basically be a strict downgrade in featureset.
oidar 7mo ago
Ultimate user here. I assume this doesn't kill "quick answers" for pro users - which I use frequently when I need a quick summarization. For assistant use directly, I've been thinking about stepping back from ultimate, as I use claude for AI rubber ducking; which works better than all of the LLMs available on assistant.
- 9Ljdg6p8ZSzejt 7mo ago
  I have maxed out my ultimate usage before and when that happens the quick summarization tools did not function indicating I hit my limit. I assume it would affect those, but that might be part of how they break it up.
- efskap 7mo ago
  That's right: > Kagi Assistant's web tool uses Kagi Search, and that has nothing to do with this subscription plans discussion, we're not changing anything there. The same applies to LLM-powered features in Kagi Search, like Quick Answer.
keysersoze33 7mo ago
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 - better for me than Google Translate), and their Summarizer. I pay for Claude, and also occasionally use OpenRouter for my AI needs.
zetanor 7mo ago
Strangely: "Searches are, unexpectedly, more expensive for us to serve than AI. A user that does only traditional searches (not using Assistant) will cost more on our end than someone using AI + search." https://kagifeedback.org/d/1338-provide-a-plan-without-ai-functionality/180 https://kagifeedback.org/d/1338-provide-a-plan-without-ai-fu...
- EbNar 7mo ago
  Yeah, that reply is a mildly infuriating, in view of what they're planning.
- luke5441 7mo ago
  How can this be true? Should I not worry about margin compression at Google due to heavy cap-ex requirements anymore? Is this temporary because Kagi got a good deal for tokens? Are they paying through their noses for the Google search API calls? I don't get it.
  - techjamie 7mo ago
    Because they pay API costs to send the search to SerpApi. I forget exactly what the cost was for them per-search and I'm having little luck finding it, but I know they've published that cost before and I know it's more than a whole cent. By comparison, running a good but not top-tier model to answer the same question might run a small fraction of a cent. Cheaper than a follow up query by the user.
- DamnInteresting 7mo ago
  > A user that does only traditional searches (not using Assistant) will cost more on our end than someone using AI + search. Unless I am missing something, that appears to be a mathematically impossible claim. They are saying A > A+B, where both A and B are positive values. I suppose it could be that non-AI users do more total searches, and the extras add up. Hmm.
  - nchagnet 7mo ago
    They're likely saying that at equal usage, the user with mixed usage will cost less because the cost of B is lower than A.
sshine 7mo ago
For a beautiful 6 months before the frontier labs were able to search as part of their responses, Kagi had an edge here. This was when the “AIs hallucinate!” meme was thriving and my response was “Wait, your AI AGENT doesn’t provide references?” and I felt very cutting edge then. Now that frontier labs have search, generalised tool use, memory, I no longer use The Agent. Haven’t done so for months. I still find great value in Kagi’s FastGPT even though this overlaps with many search engines today. It works well and I don’t pay with my privacy. But there’s no Agent edge any more, Claude wins.
kmfrk 7mo ago
I completely forgot this existed. I like the occasional feature of appending a question mark to your query to get a nice summarizer to comb through the internet so I don't, but I only use it a few times a month.
rcmjr 7mo ago
I've switched to lumo if I need an ai so that's fine by me.
clutter55561 7mo ago
I’m a pro subscriber. I like Kagi, but I think it is getting lost. Instead of focusing on being the best search engine in a world where other search engines have become deeply enshitified, they are joining the enshitification train. Start by removing features and adding a different subscription. Next add one ad from curated sources. Then add ads everywhere. I will probably cancel my subscription soon and spare myself the disappointment.
fxtentacle 7mo ago
I’m a happy user of both Kagi Search and Assistant. I would totally support a “even more than Pro” subscription for Assistant, but then it should also have its own proper API if I pay for it like a proper product. That said, I wonder how things would work if you subscribe to the assistant but not to search? Because to me, the deep search integration is precisely what makes this specific AI assistant better than, for example, ChatGPT.
computersuck 7mo ago
Feels like a rug pull.. smells like enshittification
entropyie 7mo ago
Please keep Assistant, it's an easy to use alternative to OpenAI, and is not intrusive. I will say that I find the GUI infuriating though... It's never clear where the cursor is when you start a new chat. Don't understand the low contrast layout with too much whitespace.
mastermage 7mo ago
If Professional is getting cheaper then yes otherwise way to nickle and dime me.

84 points by EbNar 7mo ago

type0 7mo ago

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

EbNar 7mo ago

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 7mo ago
[flagged]
- embedding-shape 7mo ago
  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.
  - kagi_2026 7mo ago
    [flagged]
    - lambdas 7mo ago
      Ah, but only a truly great writer could have come up with: > Start reading books or you're going to look stupid to the people around you Wherein the prose wasn’t at all sloppy, the tautology was certainly intentional; the implied audience of “look stupid” could be to people entirely absent of the vicinity!
    - embedding-shape 7mo ago
      Make grand assumptions about other HN users without knowing anything else but their HN comments, I betcha you won't find a better past-time for internet strangers :)
- syeare 7mo ago
  Even after you pointed out specific mistakes, I fail to understand how the writing is indicative of AI over-reliance?

sph 7mo ago

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 7mo ago
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 7mo ago
  For the rest of us that deeply distrust and despise the anti-ethical and wasteful assistants is an upgrade.
  - EbNar 7mo ago
    Friendly reminder that you're not forced to use it. "I despise soccer, so soccer should disappear".
    - TACD 7mo ago
      Soccer is not destroying the planet and making basic computer hardware unaffordable.
      - EbNar 7mo ago
        You're looking at the finger and missing the Moon.
    - cardanome 7mo ago
      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.

raincole 7mo ago

I know I'll sound like a Google shill, but I really don't know how this could compete against what Google AI Studio offers for now. Studio even has free quota (while being completely opaque). I once feel Kagi is some fresh air that we need for search engine. But now it seems to be more and more directly competing against the other LLM web summery products and imo Google/Gemini is light-seconds ahead in that space. The AI Overview is an ultra water downed version of it and it's still somewhat usable. Perhaps this move is signaling that they'll be back focusing on search itself more though (I hope so).

Valodim 7mo ago

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.

arch-ninja 7mo ago
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 7mo ago
  I always thought the browser, coworking space (https://hub.kagi.com/ https://hub.kagi.com/), and mail (https://kagimail.com/ 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.
littlecranky67 7mo ago
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.
denkmoon 7mo ago

willis936 7mo ago

To me this seems fine. You'd run out of tokens pretty quick without ultimate anyway, so it is a small cross section of users this affects. I am interested to learn if anything else is coming besides a billing change. Like will ultimate/assistant subscribers get access to MCP?

EbNar 7mo ago
Well, no... I use maybe 1/5 to 1/3 of may month allowance on Assistant. It's nice to have. And I subscribed to Kagi also because of it. So, the Assistant going away would mean my expensive Duo subscription going away as well.

cyanydeez 7mo ago

I recommend Kagi focus on being a sidecar to AIs rather than try to offer it in any way; I'm hoping the API comes out and I can get proper search results for my local LLM. Unless they're building their own LLMs, best not to annoy people who already see random LLMs everywhere.

leokennis 7mo ago

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.

EbNar 7mo ago
That's why I don't think anybody is going to pay for the Assistant alone.
nicce 7mo ago
It is not worse I would say. It uses neutral system prompt by default, whereas Gemini and ChatGPT will please you too much to mislead you badly. Also the base search is much batter. You can control the search while with Gemini, for example, you can't.
mpalmer 7mo ago
On the other hand, it doesn't monetize any of the data you give. Six of one, half dozen of the other, yeah? Re: image gen... it's a search engine. Why would I need my refrigerator to toast my bread?
- fc417fc802 7mo ago
  Because at least for my own usage of Google the LLM started out as an interactive search with substantially better context filtering that could tune the results to my desired technical level. However I promptly started just having it explain the subject matter to me rather than spending 30+ minutes consulting various docs and forum posts because it makes for an excellent secretary/tutor combo provided you vigilantly watch for misinformation. So to answer your question, while charts might not be particularly useful for a search engine a tutor certainly benefits from them.
- willis936 7mo ago
  The privacy buffer between the LLM providers and the user is a large part of the appeal. Having it hooked up to a search engine outside of the data broker space makes it uniquely attractive. Given that window dressing, having toasted bread in a kitchen that isn't selling my data is something I want.

BoredPositron 7mo ago

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.

QuadmasterXLII 7mo ago

The big advantage of this is that instead of getting commentariat feedback, you will see people’s wallet votes on whether they value kagi for being the best of like 6 options for search, or for being a distinctly middle of the pack option in a field of millions of thin llm wrappers.

treesknees 7mo ago

I’ve used it quite a bit, but just as a natural language frontend to their search engine. I don’t see it as a true alternative to generic chat bots like Claude or ChatGPT, and certainly not a coding tool. I would likely not subscribe to Assistant.

omnimus 7mo ago
You can look at it other way around - why to have ChatGPT when you can use chatgpt through kagi. One of the advantages being that they claim to be "privacy" layer that doesn't give other companies metadata about you.

gonzalohm 7mo ago

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

schrectacular 7mo ago

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.

Yeri 7mo ago
Those domains have been around since forever (also https://orionfeedback.org https://orionfeedback.org). I guess it was easier to just set up a new platform instead of integrating it, or building something from scratch. I haven't checked in a while, but I'm sure there's been conversations about this on discord as well (https://help.kagi.com/kagi/support-and-community/discord-server.html https://help.kagi.com/kagi/support-and-community/discord-ser...). I'm too busy to read up on every little thing, so I'm glad this happens elsewhere, off-site, and I just get the big changes through my RSS feed.

1313ed01 7mo ago

I use the assistant daily, often instead of search. The search is good, but the sad fact is searching www has been getting less interesting fast and there simply isn't much of value to find (maybe if they added an option to search in the Wayback Machine? I would pay extra for that!). Adding a LLM on top of search results and to fire off multiple searches makes it possible to sometimes squeeze a little bit of actually useful information out of the cesspool that is modern web. Without the Assistant I would probably go back down to the lowest kagi tier.

senko 7mo ago

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 7mo ago
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
omnimus 7mo ago
You can add some "bang search" (like your ? for quick answer) to use the other models Kagi supports like Kimi. The quick model is there to be mainly quick.
efskap 7mo ago
Luckily they're not changing that part. > Kagi Assistant's web tool uses Kagi Search, and that has nothing to do with this subscription plans discussion, we're not changing anything there. The same applies to LLM-powered features in Kagi Search, like Quick Answer.

hootz 7mo ago

To be honest, while it's great that it uses Kagi as its search engine and that improves the results, I find myself more and more using Claude and Gemini over Assistant while still using Kagi as my main manual search engine. They should probably focus more on their main product instead of LLMs.

tomrod 7mo ago

Huh, I didn't realize they had a standalone AI mode. I've used the summarizer a few times and found it to be occasionally useful.

sdoering 7mo ago

If they remove a feature (even if I am not using it) while keeping the price the same - why should I stay a customer? I have a contract. And at least in Germany one party to a contract can not just alter the terms of the contract. They need to cancel the existing contract and offer a new one. And I would not need to accept the new one. Yes, I would not be using Kagi anymore. But why should I have a business relationship with a company that does not honor the contractual obligations it entered into?

fc417fc802 7mo ago
Presumably they would discontinue it at the end of a billing cycle? Or have you entered into a long term contract with them?

niam 7mo ago

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 would basically be a strict downgrade in featureset.

oidar 7mo ago

Ultimate user here. I assume this doesn't kill "quick answers" for pro users - which I use frequently when I need a quick summarization. For assistant use directly, I've been thinking about stepping back from ultimate, as I use claude for AI rubber ducking; which works better than all of the LLMs available on assistant.

9Ljdg6p8ZSzejt 7mo ago
I have maxed out my ultimate usage before and when that happens the quick summarization tools did not function indicating I hit my limit. I assume it would affect those, but that might be part of how they break it up.
efskap 7mo ago
That's right: > Kagi Assistant's web tool uses Kagi Search, and that has nothing to do with this subscription plans discussion, we're not changing anything there. The same applies to LLM-powered features in Kagi Search, like Quick Answer.

keysersoze33 7mo ago

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 - better for me than Google Translate), and their Summarizer. I pay for Claude, and also occasionally use OpenRouter for my AI needs.

zetanor 7mo ago

Strangely: "Searches are, unexpectedly, more expensive for us to serve than AI. A user that does only traditional searches (not using Assistant) will cost more on our end than someone using AI + search." https://kagifeedback.org/d/1338-provide-a-plan-without-ai-functionality/180 https://kagifeedback.org/d/1338-provide-a-plan-without-ai-fu...

EbNar 7mo ago
Yeah, that reply is a mildly infuriating, in view of what they're planning.
luke5441 7mo ago
How can this be true? Should I not worry about margin compression at Google due to heavy cap-ex requirements anymore? Is this temporary because Kagi got a good deal for tokens? Are they paying through their noses for the Google search API calls? I don't get it.
- techjamie 7mo ago
  Because they pay API costs to send the search to SerpApi. I forget exactly what the cost was for them per-search and I'm having little luck finding it, but I know they've published that cost before and I know it's more than a whole cent. By comparison, running a good but not top-tier model to answer the same question might run a small fraction of a cent. Cheaper than a follow up query by the user.
DamnInteresting 7mo ago
> A user that does only traditional searches (not using Assistant) will cost more on our end than someone using AI + search. Unless I am missing something, that appears to be a mathematically impossible claim. They are saying A > A+B, where both A and B are positive values. I suppose it could be that non-AI users do more total searches, and the extras add up. Hmm.
- nchagnet 7mo ago
  They're likely saying that at equal usage, the user with mixed usage will cost less because the cost of B is lower than A.

sshine 7mo ago

For a beautiful 6 months before the frontier labs were able to search as part of their responses, Kagi had an edge here. This was when the “AIs hallucinate!” meme was thriving and my response was “Wait, your AI AGENT doesn’t provide references?” and I felt very cutting edge then. Now that frontier labs have search, generalised tool use, memory, I no longer use The Agent. Haven’t done so for months. I still find great value in Kagi’s FastGPT even though this overlaps with many search engines today. It works well and I don’t pay with my privacy. But there’s no Agent edge any more, Claude wins.

kmfrk 7mo ago

I completely forgot this existed. I like the occasional feature of appending a question mark to your query to get a nice summarizer to comb through the internet so I don't, but I only use it a few times a month.

rcmjr 7mo ago

I've switched to lumo if I need an ai so that's fine by me.

clutter55561 7mo ago

I’m a pro subscriber. I like Kagi, but I think it is getting lost. Instead of focusing on being the best search engine in a world where other search engines have become deeply enshitified, they are joining the enshitification train. Start by removing features and adding a different subscription. Next add one ad from curated sources. Then add ads everywhere. I will probably cancel my subscription soon and spare myself the disappointment.

fxtentacle 7mo ago

I’m a happy user of both Kagi Search and Assistant. I would totally support a “even more than Pro” subscription for Assistant, but then it should also have its own proper API if I pay for it like a proper product. That said, I wonder how things would work if you subscribe to the assistant but not to search? Because to me, the deep search integration is precisely what makes this specific AI assistant better than, for example, ChatGPT.

computersuck 7mo ago

Feels like a rug pull.. smells like enshittification

entropyie 7mo ago

Please keep Assistant, it's an easy to use alternative to OpenAI, and is not intrusive. I will say that I find the GUI infuriating though... It's never clear where the cursor is when you start a new chat. Don't understand the low contrast layout with too much whitespace.

mastermage 7mo ago

If Professional is getting cheaper then yes otherwise way to nickle and dime me.