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Kagi Search

COLLAB
Velocity0.0

Kagi is unbundling itself: search as an API, Assistant as an app, AI as a switch.

search-apiassistantmobile-appsuser-controlprivacy
◆Current state
The dated part of this feed stops in April on housekeeping releases — reliability work, refinements, a Small Web expansion. Everything since sits in undated rows and is more substantial: the Search API went to public preview in May carrying each account's own lenses and blocklists, June started rebuilding search widgets, July added a global off-switch for AI in search, and July 30 put Kagi Assistant on iOS and Android as a standalone app.
◆Where it's heading
Kagi is separating what used to be one subscription into distinct products with distinct surfaces: a search index other people can query, an assistant that lives on a phone, and a search page where the AI layer is optional. The through-line is user control — preferences that follow the API key, widgets that can be switched off individually, threads that can be exported or deleted in bulk — which is the one thing an ad-funded competitor cannot match on. Growth now depends on those surfaces rather than on convincing people to change their default search engine.
◆Prediction
The Search API is the piece with launch details still outstanding, so expect it to leave preview with firm pricing and the beta users migrated; the mobile Assistant is described as a first step, which points to the missing platform features arriving next.

◆Recent moves

  1. 5mo ago

    - Tuning the Orchestra #

    A heavy bug-fix sweep across Search, Assistant, Translate, and Small Web — site directive bugs, capitalization handling, IPv6 whitelisting, prayer-time widget, translation duplicate header bars, IME first-character loss, Korean formality settings, and dozens more. Translate also adds Detect Language pinning, Montenegrin support, and reduced AI refusals. The April Fools retro homepage gets a permanent URL on community demand.

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  2. 6mo ago

    - Small Web Expansion and Translate goes viral #

    ⚡ SPARK

    Kagi Small Web crosses 30,000 feeds with browser extensions, mobile apps, and new categories — TechCrunch coverage. The same release week, the LinkedIn Speak fun-language Translate launch goes viral with millions of engagements and press in The Daily Beast and elsewhere. Two of Kagi's smaller products break out simultaneously.

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  3. 7mo ago

    - Smoothing the edges #

    A revamped Wolfram|Alpha widget supporting rich equations, plots, and region-aware queries, plus a long tail of fixes across Search, Assistant, Maps, and Translate. SlopStop reports start being published publicly, signalling the AI-slop initiative is moving from intake to transparency. Korean word-order fixes and a Fastmail co-marketing moment round it out.

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  4. 7mo ago

    - Kagi Translate on Android & iOS: translate anything, anywhere #

    ⚡ SPARK

    Kagi Translate ships dedicated Android and iOS apps supporting 248 languages, with image translation, voice-to-voice, and a rich dictionary. Fast Company features the launch as a privacy-first Google Translate alternative. The product graduates from companion web tool to standalone consumer app.

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  5. 8mo ago

    - Assistant reliability upgrades and Search refinements #

    An upgraded Academic lens for scholarly results, manually-settable location for local search, accessibility fixes contributed by an external consultant, and Assistant reconnect-on-disconnect resilience. Plus the 'Waiting for dawn in search' blog post arguing for open index access as the path to a healthier web.

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  6. 8mo ago

    - New Year tune-up: smoother everything! #

    A broad new-year tune-up: Android Search app gets faster startup, native text editing, and updated home-screen widgets; News gets Time Travel mode for past summaries and paywall indicators; Translate gets background document jobs and synced pinned languages; Assistant gets GLM 4.7 with thinking and image generation in Research. Many small wins across the entire product family.

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