DuckDuckGo is adding real-time voice conversations to Duck.ai, giving users a hands-free way to interact with AI without changing how their data is handled. The new feature is optional, works without an account, and is available to free users and subscribers, with daily usage limits depending on the plan.
Duck.ai was introduced last March as a private interface for chatting with third-party AI models from OpenAI, Meta, Anthropic, and Mistral. Since then, DuckDuckGo has slowly expanded what the platform can do, including adding image generation. Voice chat is the latest step, aimed at users who want spoken responses but are uneasy about how voice data is typically stored or reused.
With DuckDuckGo AI voice chat, conversations are routed through an encrypted relay connection that the company says it cannot decrypt. OpenAI provides the model used for voice sessions, but DuckDuckGo states that neither it nor OpenAI keeps audio recordings once a conversation ends. Audio is streamed only while the user is speaking, transcribed in real time, and used to generate both spoken and text replies before being discarded.
DuckDuckGo is also explicit about what happens after the session ends. Voice data and responses are not used to train AI models, and OpenAI’s access to the data is contractually restricted to what is required to deliver the service. Chats are anonymized by DuckDuckGo, following the same privacy-first approach the company applies to its search engine and other tools.
The voice feature is available in the DuckDuckGo browser and most major third-party browsers. Firefox support has not launched yet, but DuckDuckGo says it is coming soon. All users face daily limits on voice chats, although the company does not disclose exact thresholds. Subscribers paying $10 per month receive higher limits, along with access to DuckDuckGo VPN, Personal Information Removal, and Identity Theft Restoration.
DuckDuckGo is leaning hard on choice as part of the rollout. AI voice chat is disabled by default and must be turned on manually in Duck.ai settings. Users can revoke microphone permissions or disable the feature entirely at any time, which stops any audio from being transmitted. The company has stressed that every AI feature it ships, including voice mode, is designed to be optional rather than baked into the core experience.
Voice-based AI is becoming standard across apps and platforms, often with unclear tradeoffs around retention and training. DuckDuckGo AI voice chat does not remove all risks tied to speaking out loud, but it does narrow them. For users who want to try AI voice interactions without committing their audio to long-term storage or model training, Duck.ai offers a more constrained and transparent option.
