DuckDuckGo installs are up 30% as users reject being ‘force-fed’ Google’s AI Search

Last week, after Google announced its major overhaul of Search, I heard a woman on the phone say she was switching to DuckDuckGo because you can “opt out of using AI.”

“Google just isn’t Google anymore,” she said. It seems others had the same idea.

At I/O, Google’s annual developer conference, the company said the traditional blue link list is being replaced by an AI agent that answers questions, performs tasks and runs background monitoring agents.

The reaction was sharp.

Some have argued that it will kill the open webwhile others shared their concerns about AI overviews superficial inaccurate responses and taking control away from users who may not want to use AI. It also makes simple things too complicated. Just try using the word ‘ignore’ on Google.

In response to Google’s changes, many have begun switching to DuckDuckGo, a privacy-focused alternative that was never able to break Google’s dominance and only captured about 2% of US search market.

During Google look for antitrust trial in 2023, DuckDuckGo CEO Gabriel Weinberg testified that Google’s exclusive default search contracts hurt Google’s ability to present itself as a default search in other browsers.

“Google is enforcing AI without an option to opt out,” Weinberg said in a statement on Tuesday, referring to Google’s search overhaul. “As a result their results are getting worse, not better. We want to be the place where users are in charge and let them decide how much or how little AI they want.”

Now it looks like DuckDuckGo is starting to take advantage of this as consumers flee AI.

DuckDuckGo said US app installs rose an average of 18.1% week-over-week from May 20 to 25, compared to May 13 to 18. The company said growth continued for six consecutive days and peaked at 30.5% on May 25. On iOS, the install rate is even higher, with week-on-week growth averaging 33%, peaking at 69.9%.

The search engine also said that visits to the AI-free search page noai.duckduckgo.comaveraged WoW growth of 22.7%, peaking at 27.7% on May 24. By default, the page disables any AI features, such as AI-assisted answers and AI-generated images.

The company said the trend is stronger in the US, and that DuckDuckGo continued to gain users over the Memorial Day weekend, when there is usually a dip in traffic.

DuckDuckGo offers its own AI product called Duck.ai. It’s free and doesn’t require users to create an account, but it does offer it access to modelsincluding 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 because DuckDuckGo removes the user’s IP address before requests reach the model providers, deletes conversations within 30 days, and prevents chats from being used for training.

“We respect not only the user’s choice, but also the user’s privacy,” Weinberg said. “Everything you do in DuckDuckGo is private; we don’t collect search history or chats, and nothing is used for AI training.”

DuckDuckGo also offers Search Assist, similar to Google’s AI Summaries, and an AI Image Filter that filters AI-generated images from search results.

Kamyl Bazbaz, DuckDuckGo’s chief communications and policy officer, said both AI features are among the company’s most popular, despite their different ethos.

“People just want a choice,” Bazbaz said.

TechCrunch has contacted Google for comment.