On Tuesday, Could 19, Google used its I/O developer convention to announce a new “intelligent AI-powered Search box” that features info brokers and area for follow-up questions.
Google claims the new Gemini 3.5 Flash-powered AI Mode is “the largest improve to our Search field in over 25 years.”
However, for causes from privateness to hallucinations, some customers have had sufficient and are choosing one other search engine.
One week after Google’s information, DuckDuckGo announced that its U.S. installs had elevated 30% week-over-week (WOW). The corporate is thought for not monitoring customers and for serving to to dam different platforms from doing so.
The search engine presents a No AI option by which customers can “search privately with out AI.” The homepage claims that DuckDuckGo has turned off AI-assisted solutions and eliminated AI-generated photos.
By Sunday, visits to its No AI search web page had risen 27.7% when in comparison with the earlier week, DuckDuckGo tells Quick Firm. The stat was reported earlier by TechCrunch.
The surge in numbers is kind of a blatant response to Google’s announcement, in keeping with DuckDuckGo’s interpretation. During the last 12 months DuckDuckGo has held between 1.74% and a pair of.53% of the U.S. search engine market—declining to that lowest share in April.
“Google is force-feeding AI with no solution to choose out,” DuckDuckGo CEO Gabriel Weinberg mentioned in an announcement through e mail. “Consequently, their outcomes are getting worse, not higher. We need to be the place that places customers in cost and permits them to resolve how a lot or how little AI they need.”
Quick Firm has reached to Google for remark and can replace this submit if we hear again.
How does DuckDuckGo’s AI expertise work?
None of that is to say that DuckDuckGo is vehemently towards AI use. The corporate presents Duck.ai, a chatbot that lets customers select between six free LLM fashions, resembling OpenAI’s GPT-5 mini and Meta’s Llama 4 Scout.
One other 5 fashions can be found with DuckDuckGo’s VPN service for $10 monthly or $99 for the yr.
Although DuckDuckGo simply gives entry to those LLMs, it presents one thing else main: privateness. Duck.ai takes away all of your metadata, that means your identification and IP deal with aren’t despatched to the LLM supplier.
Duck.ai additionally doesn’t use any of your prompts to coach AI and has agreements to additionally cease any of the suppliers from utilizing them. Plus, OpenAI, Meta, and extra ought to delete your prompts inside 30 days.
This story has been up to date with DuckDuckGo’s response to our inquiry.
