Kagi

About Kagi

Kagi is a subscription-only search engine founded in 2018 that fundamentally rejects the advertising business model common to most search engines. Because Kagi earns revenue from subscriptions rather than advertising, it has no financial incentive to track users, build behavioural profiles, or sell data to third parties. This alignment of business model with privacy is a meaningful structural differentiator. The platform integrates AI capabilities through its Kagi Assistant, which provides AI-generated summaries, question answering, and a conversational interface powered by multiple large language models. Users can select their preferred model including GPT-4, Claude, and Gemini. Kagi also features Summarise, a tool for summarising any webpage or document, and Lenses for focusing searches on specific content types or websites. Kagi is incorporated in the United States and headquartered in Palo Alto, California. Despite its strong privacy positioning, data is processed on US infrastructure and the company is subject to US law including the CLOUD Act. The company does not offer EU data residency options, which is a limitation for European businesses with data localisation requirements. Regarding certifications, Kagi does not currently publish SOC 2 or ISO 27001 certifications. For individual users and privacy-conscious professionals, this may be acceptable given the structural privacy guarantees of the subscription model. However, formal enterprise procurement at European institutions will likely require certifications that are not yet available. Kagi does not train AI models on user search data. Searches are not logged in ways that create persistent user profiles. This is a stronger privacy guarantee than most ad-supported search alternatives. Pricing is subscription-only with no free tier. The Starter plan at $5/month provides 300 monthly searches. The Professional plan at $10/month offers unlimited searches. Ultimate at $25/month adds access to premium AI models including GPT-4 and Claude Opus.