[HN Gopher] Kagi Assistants
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Kagi Assistants
Author : ingve
Score : 91 points
Date : 2025-11-20 20:30 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (blog.kagi.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (blog.kagi.com)
| jryio wrote:
| I think there's a very important nugget here unrelated to agents:
| Kagi as a search engine is a higher signal source of information
| than Google page rank and ad sense funded model. Primarily
| because google as it is today includes a massive amount of noise
| and suffered from blowback/cross-contamination as more LLM
| generated content pollute information truth.
|
| > We found many, many examples of benchmark tasks where the same
| model using Kagi Search as a backend outperformed other search
| engines, simply because Kagi Search either returned the relevant
| Wikipedia page higher, or because the other results were not
| polluting the model's context window with more irrelevant data.
|
| > This benchmark unwittingly showed us that Kagi Search is a
| better backend for LLM-based search than Google/Bing because we
| filter out the noise that confuses other models.
| bitpush wrote:
| > Primarily because google as it is today includes a massive
| amount of noise and suffered from blowback/cross-contamination
| as more LLM generated content pollute information truth.
|
| I'm not convinced about this. If the strategy is "lets return
| wikipedia.org as the most relevant result", that's not
| sophisticated at all. Infact, it only worked for a very narrow
| subset of queries. If I search for 'top luggages for solo
| travel', I dont want to see wikipedia and I dont know how kagi
| will be any better.
| VHRanger wrote:
| (Kagi staff here)
|
| Generally we do particularly better on product research
| queries [1] than other categories, because most poor review
| sites are full of trackers and other stuff we downrank.
|
| However there aren't public benchmarks for us to brag about
| on product search, and frankly the simpleQA digression in
| this post made it long enough it was almost cut.
|
| 1. (Except hyper local search like local restaurants)
| viraptor wrote:
| The wrote "returned the relevant Wikipedia page higher" and
| not "wikipedia.org as the most relevant result" - that's an
| important distinction. There are many irrelevant Wikipedia
| pages.
| clearleaf wrote:
| Maybe if Google hears this they will finally lift a finger
| towards removing garbage from search results.
|
| Hey Google, Pinterest results are probably messing with AI
| crawlers pretty badly. I bet it would really help the AI if
| that site was deranked :)
|
| Also if this really is the case, I wonder what an AI using
| Marginalia for reference would be like.
| viraptor wrote:
| > Maybe if Google hears this they will finally lift a finger
| towards removing garbage from search results.
|
| It's likely they can filter the results for their own agents,
| but will leave other results as they are. Half the issue with
| normal results are their ads - that's not going away.
| sroussey wrote:
| There are several startups providing web search solely for ai
| agents. Not sure any agent uses Google for this.
| MangoToupe wrote:
| > Maybe if Google hears this they will finally lift a finger
| towards removing garbage from search results.
|
| They spent the last decade and a half encouraging the
| proliferation of garbage via "SEO". I don't see this
| reversing.
| daft_pink wrote:
| Not for nothing, but I wish there was an anonymized ai built into
| a kagi that was able to have normal conversation discussion about
| sexual topics or search for pornographic topics like a safe
| search off function.
|
| I understand the safety needs around things LLM should not build
| nuclear weapons, but it would be nice to have a frontier model
| that could write or find porn.
| VHRanger wrote:
| You'll want de-censored models like cydonia for that -- can be
| found on openrouter, or through something like msty
| HotGarbage wrote:
| I really wish Kagi would focus on search and not waste time and
| money on slop.
| 0x1ch wrote:
| This is building on top of the existing core product, so the
| output is directly tied to the quality of their core search
| results being fed into the assistants. I overall really enjoy
| all of their A.I products, using their prompt assistant
| frequently for quick research tasks.
|
| It does miss occasionally, or I feel like "that was a waste of
| tokens" due to a bad response or something, but overall I like
| supporting Kagi's current mission in the market of AI tools.
| VHRanger wrote:
| It's not -- this was posted literally yesterday as a position
| statement on the matter (see early paragraphs in OP):
|
| https://blog.kagi.com/llms
|
| Kagi is treating LLMs as potentially useful tools to be used
| with their deficiencies in mind, and with respect of user
| choices.
|
| Also, we're explicitly fighting against slop:
|
| https://blog.kagi.com/slopstop
| drewda wrote:
| What they saying in this post is that they are designing these
| LLM-based features to support search.
|
| The post describes how their use-case is finding high quality
| sources relevant to a query and providing summaries with
| references/links to the user (not generating long-form
| "research reports")
|
| FWIW, this aligns with what I've found ChatGPT useful for: a
| better Google, rather than a robotic writer.
| theoldgreybeard wrote:
| I'm sure Google also says they built "AI mode" to "support
| search".
|
| Their search is still trash.
| esafak wrote:
| Except the AI mode filters out the bad results for you :)
| barrell wrote:
| If you look at my post history, I'm the last person to defend
| LLMs. That being said, I think LLMs are the next evolution in
| search. Not what OpenAI and Anthropic and xAI are working on -
| I think all the major models are moving further and further
| away from that with the "AI" stuff. But the core technology is
| an amazing way to search.
|
| So I actually find it the perfect thing for Kagi to work with.
| If they can leverage LLMs to improve search, without getting
| distracted by the "AI" stuff, there's tons of potential value,
|
| Not saying that's what this is... but if there's any company
| I'd want playing with LLMs it's probably Kagi
| skydhash wrote:
| A better search would be rich metadata and powerful filter
| tools, not result summarizer. When I search, I want to find
| stuff, I don't want an interpretation of what was found.
| bigstrat2003 wrote:
| Same, though in fairness as long as they don't force it on me
| (the way Google does) and as long as the real search results
| don't suffer because of a lack of love (which so far they
| haven't), then it's no skin off my back. I think LLMs are an
| abysmal tool for finding information, but as long as the actual
| search feature is working well then I don't care if an LLM
| option exists.
| itomato wrote:
| I'm seeing a lot of investment in these things that have a short
| shelf life.
|
| Agents/assistants but nothing more.
| VHRanger wrote:
| We're building tools that we find useful, and we hope others
| find it too. See notes on our view of LLMs and their flaws:
|
| https://blog.kagi.com/llms
| ugurs wrote:
| Why do you think the shelf life is short?
| natemcintosh wrote:
| As a Kagi subscriber, I find this to be mostly useful. I'd say I
| do about 50% standard Kagi searches, 50% Kagi assistant
| searches/conversations. This new ability to change the level of
| "research" performed can be genuinely useful in certain contexts.
| That said, I probably expect to use this new "research assistant"
| once or twice a month.
| VHRanger wrote:
| I'd say the most useful part for me is appending ? / !quick /
| !research directly from the browser search bar to a query
| ceroxylon wrote:
| Kagi reminds me of the original search engines of yore, when I
| could type what I want and it would appear, and I could go on
| with my work/life.
|
| As for the people who claim this will create/introduce slop, Kagi
| is one of the few platforms where they are actively fighting
| against low quality AI generated content with their community
| fueled "SlopStop" campaign.[0]
|
| Not sponsored, just a fan. Looking forward to trying this out.
|
| [0] https://help.kagi.com/kagi/features/slopstop.html
| iLoveOncall wrote:
| The fact that people applaud Kagi taking the money they gave for
| search to invest it in bullshit AI products and spit on Google's
| AI search at the same time tells you everything you need to know
| about HackerNews.
| VHRanger wrote:
| We're explicitly conscious of the bullshit problem in AI and we
| try to focus on only building tools we find useful. See
| position statement on the matter yesterday:
|
| https://blog.kagi.com/llms
| iLoveOncall wrote:
| Your words don't match your actions.
|
| And to be clear you shouldn't build the tools that YOU find
| useful, you should build the tools that your users, which pay
| for a specific product, find useful.
|
| You could have LLMs that are actually 100% accurate in their
| answers that it would not matter at all to what I am raising
| here. People are NOT paying Kagi for bullshit AI tools,
| they're paying for search. If you think otherwise, prove it,
| make subscriptions entirely separate for both products.
| freediver wrote:
| Kagi founder here. We are moving to a future where these
| subscriptions will be separate. Even today more that 80% of
| our members use Kagi Assistant and our other AI-supported
| products so saying "people are NOT paying Kagi for bullshit
| AI tools" is not accurate, mostly in the sense that we are
| not in the business of creating bullshit tools. Life is too
| short for that. I also happen to like Star Trek version of
| the future, where smart computers we can talk to exist. I
| also like that Star Trek is still 90% human drama, and 10%
| technology quitely working in the background in service of
| humans - and this is the kind of future I would like to
| build towards and leave for my children. Having the most
| accurate search in the world that has users' best interest
| in mind is a big part of it, and that is not going
| anywhere.
| iLoveOncall wrote:
| > I also happen to like Star Trek version of the future,
| where smart computers we can talk to exist [...], this is
| the kind of future I would like to build towards
|
| Well if that doesn't seal the deal in making it clear
| that Kagi is not about search anymore, I don't know what
| does. Sad day for Kagi search users, wow!
|
| > Having the most accurate search in the world that has
| users' best interest in mind is a big part of it
|
| It's not, you're just trying to convince yourself it is.
| grayhatter wrote:
| > LLMs are bullshitters. But that doesn't mean they're not
| useful
|
| > Note: This is a personal essay by Matt Ranger, Kagi's head
| of ML
|
| I appreciate the disclaimer, but never underestimate
| someone's inability to understand something, when their job
| depends on them not understanding it.
|
| Bullshit isn't useful to me, I don't appreciate being lied
| to. You might find use in declaring the two different, but
| sufficiently advanced ignorance (or incompetence) is
| indistinguishable from actual malice, and thus they should be
| treated the same.
|
| Your essay, while well written, doesn't do much to convince
| me any modern LLM has a net positive effect. If I have to
| duplicate all of it's research to verify none of it is
| bullshit, which will only be harder after using it given the
| anchoring and confirmation bias it will introduce... why?
| w10-1 wrote:
| Do you have any evidence that the AI efforts are not being
| funded by the AI product, Kagi Assistant? I would expect the
| reverse: the high-margin AI products are likely cross-
| subsidizing the low-margin search products and their sliver of
| AI support.
| stefan_ wrote:
| High-margin AI products? Yes the world is just filled with
| those!
| bananapub wrote:
| regular reminder: kagi is - above all else - a really really good
| search engine, and if google/etc, or even just the increasingly
| horrific ads-ocracy make you sad, you should definitely give it a
| go - the trial is here: https://kagi.com/pricing
|
| if you like it, it's only $10/month, which I regrettably spend on
| coffee some days.
| skydhash wrote:
| I now that the price haven't changed for a while, but I would
| pay for unlimited search and no AI.
| iLoveOncall wrote:
| > above all else
|
| What they've been building for the past couple of years makes
| it blindingly clear that they are definitely not a search
| engine *above all else*.
|
| Don't believe me? Check their CEO's goal:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45998846
| AuthAuth wrote:
| Kagi is already expensive for a search engine. Now I know part of
| my subscription is going towards funding AI bullshit. And I know
| the cost of that AI bullshit will get jacked up in price and
| force Kagi sub price up as well. I'm so tired of AI being forced
| into everything.
| progval wrote:
| These are only available on the Ultimate tier. If (like me) you
| don't care about the LLMs then there is no reason to be on the
| Ultimate tier so you don't pay for it.
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| >expensive for a search engine.
|
| As in, not "free"?
|
| Either way, I guess we'll see how this affects the service.
| ranyume wrote:
| I used quick research and it was pretty cool. A couple of caveats
| to keep in mind:
|
| 1. It answers using only the crawled sites. You can't make it
| crawl a new page. 2. It doesn't use a page' search function
| automatically.
|
| This is expected, but doesn't hurt to take that in mind. I think
| i'd be pretty useful. You ask for recent papers on a site and the
| engine could use hackernews' search function, then kagi would
| crawl the page.
| smallerfish wrote:
| I tried a prompt that consistently gets Gemini to badly
| hallucinate, and it responded correctly.
|
| Prompt: "At a recent SINAC conference (approx Sept 2025) the
| presenters spoke about SINAC being underresourced and in crisis,
| and suggested better leveraging of and coordination with NGOs.
| Find the minutes of the conference, and who was advocating for
| better NGO interaction."
|
| The conference was actually in Oct 2024. The approx date in
| parens causes Gemini to create an entirely false narrative, which
| includes real people quoted out of context. This happens in both
| Gemini regular chat and Gemini Deep Research (in which the
| narrative gets badly out of control).
|
| Kagi reasonably enough answers: "I cannot find the minutes of a
| SINAC conference from approximately September 2025, nor any
| specific information about presenters advocating for better NGO
| coordination at such an event."
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(page generated 2025-11-20 23:00 UTC)