Last week, after Google announced a major overhaul to its search engine, a woman overheard on the phone said she was switching to DuckDuckGo because you can "opt out of using AI."
"Google just isn't Google anymore," she said. It appears many others shared her view.
At its I/O developer conference, Google said its traditional list of blue links would be replaced by an AI agent that answers queries, executes tasks, and runs background monitoring agents. The backlash has been sharp.
Critics argue it will kill the open web. Others worry AI overviews surface inaccurate responses and remove control from users who do not want AI. Simple searches become overcomplicated. For example, searching the word "disregard" now produces odd results.
Users Flock to Privacy-Focused Alternative
In response, many users have started moving to DuckDuckGo, a privacy-focused search engine that has struggled to break past Google's dominance. DuckDuckGo holds only about 2% of the U.S. search market.
During Google's antitrust trial in 2023, DuckDuckGo CEO Gabriel Weinberg testified that Google's exclusive default search contracts hurt its ability to become the default on other browsers.
"Google is force-feeding AI with no way to opt out," Weinberg said Tuesday in a statement. "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."
Now DuckDuckGo appears to be benefiting from the consumer exodus.
Installation and Traffic Data
DuckDuckGo said U.S. app installs increased 18.1% week-over-week on average from May 20 to May 25, compared to the previous week. The company noted that growth was sustained for six consecutive days and peaked at 30.5% on May 25.
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On iOS, the growth was even higher. Week-over-week installs averaged 33%, peaking at 69.9%.
The search engine also reported that visits to its AI-free search page, noai.duckduckgo.com, averaged 22.7% week-over-week growth, peaking at 27.7% on May 24. That page turns off all AI features by default, including AI-assisted answers and AI-generated images.
The company said the trend is stronger in the U.S. DuckDuckGo continued to gain users over the Memorial Day weekend, a period when traffic usually dips.
DuckDuckGo's Own AI Offerings
DuckDuckGo offers its own AI product called Duck.ai. It is free and does not require an account. It provides access to models including 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 private. DuckDuckGo strips the user's IP address before requests reach model providers, deletes conversations within 30 days, and prevents chats from being used for training.
"Not only do we respect user choice, but also user privacy," Weinberg said. "Everything you do in DuckDuckGo is private, we don't collect search histories or chats and nothing is used for AI training."
DuckDuckGo also offers Search Assist, similar to Google's AI overviews, and an AI Image Filter that filters out AI-created images from search results.
Kamyl Bazbaz, DuckDuckGo's chief communications and policy officer, said both of those AI features are among the company's most popular, despite their differing ethos.
"People just want a choice," Bazbaz said.
TechCrunch has reached out to Google for comment.