Ecosia AI explained: the Chinese models behind it, what it costs and how to turn it off

Ecosia AI is the free chatbot and set of AI summaries built into Ecosia, the Berlin search engine that spends its profits on planting trees, and since early October 2026 many of its answers come from open-weight models first released by Chinese labs, such as Qwen, GLM and Kimi, running on European servers alongside France’s Mistral. It is optional: one setting, AI-free search, switches all of it off. Here is what it does, what runs it, what it costs, how green it is and how to switch it off.

Last checked: October 27, 2026.

What is Ecosia AI?

Ecosia AI is two features, which Ecosia rolled out in their current form on December 2, 2025 alongside a redesign of the site:

• AI Overviews: a short AI summary at the top of some search results, with links to the sources it used. They are on by default where available.
• AI Chat: a separate chatbot, reached from the AI Chat tab, the navigation bar or the star symbol in your results. Ecosia also sends some searches straight to it when a query looks like a complex question, which it calls auto-routing.

According to Ecosia’s help centre, AI Chat has three modes, picked from the “+” button in the chat bar: Web Source, which pulls answers from the live web; Guided Learning, which works through a topic step by step like a tutor; and Think Longer, which reasons for longer before answering. You can upload up to five files per conversation (PDF, TXT, DOCX, CSV, XLSX, JPG or PNG, 5 MB each), and signed-in users can generate images.

It is deliberately smaller than ChatGPT or Gemini: AI Chat can’t make videos, share conversations or do deep research, and Ecosia says it skips energy-heavy features on purpose.

Which AI model does Ecosia use?

Ecosia uses several models side by side and doesn’t publish an exact list. Its help centre says it runs “a combination of open weight models, as well as Mistral”, sending different kinds of questions to different models. The mix has changed twice since then:

• December 2, 2025: AI Overviews and AI Chat launch on what Ecosia calls small models.
• May 22, 2026: Ecosia moves its AI “almost entirely” to a European model provider, Mistral of Paris.
• Early October 2026: founder and chief executive Christian Kroll told Politico that Ecosia had moved much of its AI to open-weight models, naming Alibaba’s Qwen, Z.ai’s GLM and Moonshot AI’s Kimi, served through Melious, a German platform. He said the switch had roughly halved Ecosia’s AI costs, and complained of overloaded servers and models he saw as behind rivals at Mistral, which had launched its biggest model, Large 4, days earlier.

This is how the pieces fit together today, according to Ecosia’s own pages:

Ecosia doesn’t say which model answers a given question. The table combines its help centre, privacy policy and Kroll’s comments.

Melious, based in Saarbrücken, Germany, sells access to more than 60 open models through one API. It says requests are processed in European data centres (it lists Dublin, Paris, Limburg and Helsinki), that failover stays inside Europe and that it never trains on customer data.

Is Ecosia AI Chinese? Is it safe?

Ecosia is a German company, and the Chinese models it uses run on servers in Europe, not in China. That is the crux of its defence. In a set of FAQs added to its help centre, Ecosia argues that an open-weight model, once downloaded, “is just a file on our own servers” with “no connection to the company that first published it”, and that a self-hosted model “cannot ‘phone home’”. Your questions and answers, it says, stay within its infrastructure rather than going to the US, China or anywhere else outside the EU.

Two caveats are worth knowing:

• Bias. Ecosia admits that “some models, including Chinese ones, have been shown to repeat state positions on sensitive topics”. Its answer is to test models on sensitive questions, send different queries to different models and show sources so you can check them.
• Agents are different from chat. A chatbot that only writes answers can’t run commands on a computer, but models given real tools can behave differently: on October 26 Cohere said an open-weight Qwen model, running as an agent with command-line access in a security test, tried to upload a file to a server in Beijing. Ecosia’s chat doesn’t give the model that kind of access, but it explains why people ask.

Does Ecosia AI keep your chats?

Only if you ask it to. Ecosia’s rules for AI Chat, from its help centre and privacy policy:

• Chat history is opt-in. It needs an Ecosia account, is encrypted in transit and at rest, and is stored with Cloudflare as a subprocessor. Turning it off permanently deletes what was saved. Without it, chats live only in your browser’s local storage.
• Files and images are deleted after 7 days. Uploaded files are wiped within 7 days; generated images are kept on European servers for up to 7 days and carry C2PA content credentials marking them as AI-made.
• No training on your chats. Ecosia says it doesn’t sell or share chat data and doesn’t train models, so your conversations aren’t used for training.
• Some chats are sampled. A small, anonymised sample is kept for up to 30 days in a tool called Langfuse for quality checks. You can opt out by emailing [email protected], and request or delete your conversations via [email protected].

One gap: Ecosia’s privacy policy was last updated on May 21, 2026, before the October switch. It still names Mistral as the main chat provider, with OpenAI as a backup that keeps inputs and outputs for 30 days, and doesn’t mention Melious. Until Ecosia updates it, that backup arrangement is the one on record. As with any chatbot, Ecosia says not to type health, financial or other sensitive details. Our privacy comparison of the big chatbots shows how the larger rivals handle the same questions.

Is Ecosia AI free? Ecosia AI subscription prices

Ecosia AI is free to use, with or without an account. In the US only, Ecosia is testing paid plans in beta, which lift the daily limits on its heavier features. The pricing page lists:

“Fair usage limits apply” to every plan. Prices are in US dollars (roughly £6 and £11, or €7 and €13); the plans aren’t sold outside the US yet.

Limits reset daily. Payments go through Link, Stripe’s checkout service, which is why “Sold through Link” appears on receipts. To cancel, sign in and go to Account settings, Manage Subscription, Cancel subscription; the plan runs to the end of the billing period, then drops back to Free.

Is Ecosia AI good for the environment? What about water?

Ecosia’s case is that it keeps AI’s footprint small and then more than offsets it. It says it uses small, efficient models, refuses energy-hungry features such as video generation, picks models using Hugging Face’s AI Energy Score, has invested €18 million in renewable energy projects and generates “more clean energy than our AI uses”. Any models it hosts itself, it says, run on renewable power.

It estimates the impact of each AI request with EcoLogits, a life-cycle method that counts greenhouse gas emissions, energy, raw materials and water used to run the models. Ecosia notes that this leaves out training the models, the network and your own device. It hasn’t published per-question figures for energy or water, so its claims can’t be checked independently. Ecosia itself has said AI uses significantly more energy than traditional search. Our explainer on AI’s strain on power grids covers the bigger picture.

How to turn off Ecosia AI

The quickest way is AI-free search, added on July 2, 2026, which switches off every AI feature in one go:

1. On ecosia.org, open Profile, then Settings.
2. Select AI-free searching.

That turns off AI Overviews and auto-routing, removes AI Chat from the navigation bar and the autocomplete list, and swaps the AI search box for the traditional one. It currently works on desktop only; Ecosia says mobile support is coming.

To turn off just one part:

• AI Overviews: go to your search settings, find AI Overviews and untick the box, or switch them off from the overview itself.
• Auto-routing into AI Chat: you are offered the option to disable it the first time a search is sent to the chatbot.
• AI Chat: it only runs if you use it, so simply don’t open the tab.

Ecosia saves these settings in a browser cookie, so they disappear if you clear cookies, and private or incognito windows won’t remember them. Set them in a normal window first.

Where is Ecosia AI available?

Ecosia AI is rolling out in stages, so not everyone in these countries sees it yet:

• AI Chat (35 countries): the US, UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, Norway and Switzerland, plus Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain and Sweden.
• AI Overviews (13 countries): the US, UK, Canada, Brazil, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Austria, Belgium, Portugal, the Netherlands and Switzerland.
• Paid plans: the US only, in beta.

India, Japan and the rest of Asia aren’t on either list, and Australia and New Zealand get AI Chat but not Overviews. If you’re in a listed country and still don’t see it, Ecosia says ad blockers, script blockers, VPNs, work networks and older browsers can stop the AI features loading.

Frequently asked questions

What AI does Ecosia use?

A mix. Ecosia’s help centre says it uses Mistral alongside open-weight models, and founder Christian Kroll named Alibaba’s Qwen, Z.ai’s GLM and Moonshot AI’s Kimi in October 2026, served through the German platform Melious on European servers. AI Overviews use Mistral Small 3.2, and image generation uses Black Forest Labs.

Does Ecosia use ChatGPT?

Not as its main model. Ecosia moved away from OpenAI to Mistral in May 2026, but its privacy policy still lists OpenAI as a backup used only when Mistral is unavailable.

Is Ecosia AI free?

Yes. AI Chat and AI Overviews are free, with daily limits on file uploads and Think Longer mode. In the US Ecosia is testing paid Starter ($7.99 a month) and Pro ($14.99 a month) plans with higher limits.

Is Ecosia AI safe if it uses Chinese models?

Ecosia says the Chinese models run on its partners’ servers in Europe, have no link back to their makers and can’t send data to China. It admits some Chinese models repeat state positions on sensitive topics and says it routes such questions to other models and shows sources.

How do I turn off Ecosia AI?

On desktop, go to Profile, then Settings, and select AI-free searching. That turns off AI Overviews, AI Chat in the navigation bar and auto-routing in one step. To turn off only AI Overviews, untick AI Overviews in your search settings.

Does Ecosia AI save my chats?

Only if you turn on Chat history, which needs an account and is encrypted. Otherwise chats stay in your browser. Uploaded files and generated images are deleted after 7 days, and Ecosia says chats aren’t used to train models.

Is Ecosia AI good for the environment?

Ecosia says it uses small models, avoids video generation and generates more clean energy than its AI uses. It measures impact with the EcoLogits method but hasn’t published per-question energy or water figures.

Why can’t I see Ecosia AI Chat?

AI Chat is a beta available in 35 countries and rolling out gradually. Ad blockers, script blockers, VPNs, work networks and older browsers can also stop it loading.

Sources: Ecosia Help Center, Generative AI on Ecosia Search and Ecosia AI subscription; Ecosia pricing; Ecosia privacy policy (May 21, 2026); Ecosia blog: Ecosia AI is here, Our AI just got even better, You can now choose AI-free search; Melious; Politico (Kroll interview).