From my experience, Kagi always prefer to "trickle down" features to lower tiers . First they removed search limits from some plans without increasing the price. Now they're allowing to use the AI assistant, if you want.

The gist is, when you don't use the AI assistant, you still pay the base price, and that money goes to R&D, since your subscription money doesn't go to AI providers in the first place.

For example, I have no interest in AI assistant, and I won't use it. As a result, my support will Kagi won't change.