Privacy-focused search engine DuckDuckGo has seen a massive surge of new users after Google announced a series of AI-related updates to its platform.
In the week that followed Google’s annual I/O developer conference last month, which saw the US tech giant unveil a “new era for AI search”, DuckDuckGo saw app installs increase by nearly a third, while interest in its ‘No AI’ search page tripled.
“Since Google revealed its plan for an AI search overhaul, visits to our ‘No AI’ search page have tripled... and they’re still rising,” a post to DuckDuckGo’s Bluesky account stated.
The company also unveiled browser extensions that allow people using Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox to set an AI-free version of DuckDuckGo as their default search engine.
DuckDuckGo has a global market share of just 0.7 per cent, according to April figures from web analytics firm Statcounter.
By comparison, Google’s market share is just above 90 per cent, up by nearly 1 per cent year-on-year.
DuckDuckGo is hoping to challenge this dominance by offering an alternative to Google’s mass integration of artificial intelligence to its services.
A recent DuckDuckGo advertising campaign focused on Google’s AI push, with one ad stating: “Not liking the direction Google is headed? Come to the Duck side.”
Google said the new AI updates unveiled at Google I/O marked the biggest change to its search engine since it launched in 1998.
The company said the changes would allow users to ask longer questions and get more detailed answers, however it has faced widespread criticism for not allowing users to opt-out of the AI integration.
The AI summaries now offered by Google have led some to argue that zero-click search could kill the open web, as online publishers no longer get visitors through search results.
Inaccuracies in the AI-generated results – Google infamously encouraged people to use glue to make pizzas – have also seen backlash from some users.
“Google is force-feeding AI with no way to opt out,” DuckDuckGo CEO and founder Gabriel Weinberg said 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. That’s why we’re seeing a spike in people coming to DuckDuckGo this week, it’s as simple as that.”
