Feedback on Kagi Assistant from former subscriber

onthefence

I am posting this because I realized that it will be a year since I first subscribed to Kagi more for the LLM access than the Kagi search. I felt that I needed to relay the helplessness that I felt when using the Kagi Assistant and why I left in frustration.

I was a subscriber to Kagi Pro for 4 months in late 2025. I quit because of two things. My frustration with Kagi Assistant and the poor results I was having w various LLMs that was no better than free versions of these LLMs. When I posted about my issues in your discord I was told by one user "You are using in wrong." That was the extent of the help I received. No suggestions etc. I quit shortly after that. It seems Kagi Assistant and the interactions on your Discord was at least from my point of view aimed towards advanced users of AI rather than people starting out or trying to get their feet wet so to speak. I felt lost and that only added to my frustration level.

It seems that Kagi is marketing the search to everyone out there whereas Kagi Assistant and the LLM are being marketed to more advanced users. The newbies like me are left out in the cold and allowed to become more frustrated and confused. I wonder how many other subscribers former and existing are just throwing up their hands with Kagi Assistant and what in my opinion is lack of basic help with those of us who get over their heads when it comes to using LLMs.

I am debating on whether to try Ultimate which is not cheap here in Canada with taxes it is close to $40 CAD a month. That pales to other LLMs subscriptions but if nothing has changed at Kagi I wonder if I need the added frustration.

Perhaps add a separate channel on your discord for people like me who are newbies to LLMs but are more than willing to learn but need assistance solving issues. You never know whether there will be some diamond in the rough. People get in over their heads and need basic explanations but may feel asking in the Kagi Assistant embarrassed to ask there due to more involved topics being covered.

From this former user it seems that there is very little explanation on which models are suited for general research and which are better for coding.

If Kagi want to tailor their Kagi Assistant and access to various LLMs to more advanced users then pardon the interruption.

mb

I've just recently started using LLM chat apps myself. I've been given access to the early preview of the standalone Kagi Assistant apps for Android and iOS and it's how I interact with it 90% of the time. If it's a big thing I'm doing then I might use it on the computer instead and upload tons of files and write long questions with lots of instructions...

So, perhaps you could wait until the Kagi Assistant apps for Android and iOS have been officially launched to give you a more seamless experience and so that you can get more out of the subscription.

As for the Discord community, hopefully things have changed since the last time you were there. There are a lot of casual users, but there are also people who have very technical in-depth discussions in the same channel, # kagi-assistant. Everyone are welcome there, and there are no stupid questions.

onthefence

mb
For the majority of my use it is done via the browser on my desktop computer. I do use AI when I am on site trying to solve a hardware or software issue but that is a lot less than desktop browser UI.

My frustration with Kagi and their LLMs was that I got the impression that the service was for the more advanced LLM users rather than me a novice. At least that is the vibes that I got from the Kagi-assistant Discord channel. I felt overwhelmed and on my own.

When I was a subscriber I got the feeling that Kagi had too many irons in the fire at the same time and the various product offerings were suffering. I have no idea if bug reports or other concerns are being tended to quicker than they were a year ago.

Luis

Hi @onthefence we really appreciate you taking the time to share your experience. I understand where your thoughts and frustration come from, and you’re right that we had internal work to do to set Kagi Assistant up for success. Your instincts about why are mostly correct...
... and we're changing that. We’re hard at work on the next iteration of the product, which we expect to introduce with a bigger launch and announcement. We’re aiming to begin a phased rollout in early September, and I’d love for you to be part of it. If you’re interested, please let us know and we’ll get you set up.

Thoughtful, candid feedback like yours is exactly what will help us make Kagi Assistant a great product.

mb

onthefence the phone apps were just released!

iOS: https://apps.apple.com/app/id6755965340
Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.kagi.assistant&hl=en

onthefence

Luis I may be interested in it. It all depends on the changes and whether the changes address any of my concerns.

Temanor

What were the issues you were having?

It's a bit hard to tell if it has changed in that regard. I enjoy the changes we have had to Assistant, but I don't know if I fit your description of an advanced user or not.

onthefence

Temanor That is my issue. In my opinion Kagi Assistant is for advanced users who do not need hand holding and are quite well versed in using AI. I am not a coder. I have no desire to have AI write code. I do tech research and got frustrated with the results I was seeing from Kagi Assistant which was the main reason I took out a subscription. I felt that the results were no better than the free services I was already using and when I expressed my frustration in the Kagi Assistant Discord I was told that I was using AI wrong. No suggestions were offered.

It was then I decided to cancel my subscription after 5 months of Pro. In my opinion, I felt there was no advantage to me, a non-advanced AI user to Kagi-Assistant. Spending what amounts to be $40 CAD a month for Ultimate is hard for me to justify to get access to the more powerful LLM

Temanor

onthefence Ok, but what makes you feel it was for advanced users only? I didn't feel like that when I used the assistant.
I'm just trying to understand the issue.

As for the Discord, it is a community server where everyone can talk with eachother. Staff may not be available to answer everything. People shouldn't be replying like that though.

onthefence

Temanor Regarding Kagi-Assistant I did not feel like the results were any better than the free services I was already using.

Advanced users feeling came from the majority of the Discord Kagi-assistant discussions where I felt that asking simple questions about the very basics using LLMs was beyond the scope with more advanced topics being covered more. That feeling of mine was reinforced by that comment from that user. Hence why I gave up

Temanor

onthefence I also felt that it wasn't very clear what the difference in the models actually were, however they have added some information when you hover over the models.

I also believe the introduction of Quick Assistant and Research Assistant was an attempt to make things easier/clearer. Unless you have a preferance for a specific LLM, you can most likely just stick with these two.

I don't know when you left, so I don't know if these changes was before or after you left.

Most of the time, I feel like the people in the Discord are quite helpful, but most of them are also just random customers like me and you. If you need direct support from Kagi employees, they have a support email at support@kagi.com.

Hope this helps.

onthefence

Temanor

Appreciate the info. I left in early Dec 2025 and by then I believe those were implemented but Assistant was still using the older UI layout. Kagi Pro cost me $15 CAD a month which I had for 4 months. Ultimate would be about $40. Unlike I guess most Kagi users I was a subscriber for the LLMs rather than search which I had moved to DDG and StartSearch.

I had issues trying to justify spending $15 CAD a month for the LLMs at the time since I had already been using Perplexity, ChatGPT and Gemini for non coding questions and found that the answers via Kagi were obtainable for free. Now the results were not always what I needed and was frustrating a times with Kagi and non Kagi aka free sources.

In other words it was hard for me to justify continuing with Kagi as I was not getting what I felt any value out of it in the way of better results out of the LLM offered via Kagi Pro.

mb

onthefence the new Kagi Assistant phone apps will give you 50 free questions/prompts when logged out, so you could try it without paying.