Google announced an AI-powered Search box at its I/O developer conference, featuring information agents and follow-up questions powered by Gemini 3.5 Flash. Some users expressed concerns about privacy and hallucinations and sought alternatives. A week later, DuckDuckGo reported a 30% week-over-week increase in U.S. installs and highlighted its No AI option, which claims to disable AI-assisted answers and remove AI-generated images. Visits to the No AI search page rose 27.7% compared with the prior week. DuckDuckGo CEO Gabriel Weinberg said Google forces AI without an opt-out and that results are getting worse. DuckDuckGo also offers Duck.ai, where users can choose among multiple LLM models.
"Google used its I/O developer conference to announce a new "intelligent AI-powered Search box" that includes information agents and space for follow-up questions. Google claims the new Gemini 3.5 Flash-powered AI Mode is "the biggest upgrade to our Search box in over 25 years." But, for reasons from privacy to hallucinations, some users have had enough and are opting for another search engine."
"One week after Google's news, DuckDuckGo announced that its U.S. installs had increased 30% week-over-week (WOW). The company is known for not tracking users and for helping to block other platforms from doing so. The search engine offers a No AI option in which users can "search privately without AI." The homepage claims that DuckDuckGo has turned off AI-assisted answers and removed AI-generated images."
"By Sunday, visits to its No AI search page had risen 27.7% when compared to the previous week, the company told TechCrunch. The surge in numbers is quite a blatant response to Google's announcement, according to DuckDuckGo's interpretation. Over the last 12 months DuckDuckGo has held between 1.74% and 2.53% of the U.S. search engine market -declining to that lowest percentage in April."
""Google is force-feeding AI with no way to opt out," DuckDuckGo CEO Gabriel Weinberg told TechCrunch. "As a result, their results are getting worse, not better. We want to be the place that puts users in charge and allows them to decide how much or how little AI they want." How does DuckDuckGo's AI technology work? None of this is to say that DuckDuckGo is vehemently against AI use."
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