DuckDuckGo quietly adds GPT-5.6 Luna and makes it the default option on the browser

The latest version of DuckDuckGo has made OpenAI’s GPT-5.6 Luna model the standard one in Duck.ai. It’s the fastest tier that the company offers and is also the most affordable.

Heading over to the Duck.ai chat box, you’ll find that GPT-5.6 Luna is now selected by default. For those unaware, Duck.ai is a privacy-focused chat platform that the company offers for free (base models), and you don’t even have to log in to use it.

It also provides multimodal access and strictly emphasizes that no metadata is collected. If you want to use better models such as Claude Sonnet or Opus, you’ll need to pay for the subscription.

Under the options for AI models in the browsers, you’ll also find Gemma 4, which is in beta. It also includes GPT-5.4 mini, but you’ll run into rate limits faster if you use that. Claude Haiku 4.5 is also offered for free, but that one doesn’t have as many free-use tokens as GPT-5.6 Luna either.

DuckDuckGo describes the default Luna model as the best one for everyday use. GPT-5.6 Sol is unavailable at the time of writing in the given list of options.

Since DuckDuckGo hasn’t officially announced this change, people were taken aback and were quick to point this out on social media. It’s a silent update, and the model appeared out of nowhere a few days ago. However, it’s worth noting that we don’t know the exact thinking level the company has selected, so it may not suit complex tasks well.

In other DuckDuckGo news, a recent update for the iOS app has added more shortcut options to the address bar and toolbar. More on that here.

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