Final week, after Google introduced a serious overhaul of search, I overheard a lady on the cellphone saying she was switching to DuckDuckGo as a result of “you possibly can choose out of utilizing AI.”
“Google is now not Google,” she mentioned. It appears others had the identical concept.
At I/O, Google’s annual developer convention, the corporate mentioned the normal listing of blue hyperlinks can be changed with AI brokers that reply queries, carry out duties, and run background monitoring brokers.
The backlash was fierce.
Some argue that it will kill the open internet, whereas others share considerations that AI summaries will floor inaccurate responses and take management away from customers who do not wish to use AI. It additionally overcomplicates one thing easy. Attempt looking Google for the phrase “ignored.”
In response to Google’s adjustments, many individuals have began defecting to DuckDuckGo. DuckDuckGo is a privacy-focused different, but it surely was by no means capable of break free from Google’s dominance, which accounts for less than about 2% of the U.S. search market.
At Google’s 2023 search antitrust trial, DuckDuckGo CEO Gabriel Weinberg testified that Google’s unique default search settlement harm the corporate’s potential to market itself because the default on different browsers.
“Google is force-feeding AI with no solution to choose out,” Weinberg mentioned in a press release Tuesday, referring to Google’s search overhaul. “In consequence, their outcomes are getting worse, not higher. We wish to give customers management and be a spot the place they’ll determine how a lot or how a lot AI they need.”
Now, it seems like DuckDuckGo is beginning to profit as shoppers flee AI.
In keeping with DuckDuckGo, app installs within the U.S. elevated a mean of 18.1% week over week from Could 20 to Could 25, in comparison with Could 13 to Could 18. Development was sustained for six consecutive days and peaked at 30.5% on Could 25, the corporate mentioned. The set up charge was even larger on iOS, with a mean week-over-week improve of 33% and a peak of 69.9%.
The search engine additionally introduced that visits to its non-AI search web page, noai.duckduckgo.com, recorded a mean WoW progress of twenty-two.7%, reaching 27.7% on Could twenty fourth. All AI options, corresponding to AI-assisted solutions and AI-generated photographs, are turned off by default on this web page.
The corporate mentioned the development was even stronger within the U.S., the place DuckDuckGo customers continued to extend over the Memorial Day weekend, when visitors sometimes drops.
DuckDuckGo presents its personal AI product referred to as Duck.ai. It is free, customers needn’t create an account, but it surely gives entry to fashions like Anthropic’s Claude 4.5 Haiku, Meta’s Llama 4 Scout, Mistral’s Small 3 24B, and OpenAI’s GPT-5 mini. All chats are non-public as a result of DuckDuckGo removes person IP addresses earlier than requests attain mannequin suppliers, deletes conversations inside 30 days, and ensures chats are usually not used for coaching.
“We respect not solely your decisions, but in addition your privateness,” Weinberg mentioned. “All the things you do on DuckDuckGo is non-public. Your search historical past or chats are usually not collected, and nothing is used for AI coaching.”
DuckDuckGo additionally presents Search Help, which has similarities to Google’s AI Overview, and AI Picture Filter, which excludes photographs created by AI from search outcomes.
DuckDuckGo’s chief communications and coverage officer, Kamil Bazbaz, mentioned that regardless of the variations in philosophy, each of those AI capabilities are among the many firm’s hottest options.
“Folks simply need choices,” BuzzBuzz mentioned.
newsweblatest has reached out to Google for remark.
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