At Google I/O, the company announced that the classic list-of-links search results page will gradually give way to an AI agent that answers queries, executes tasks, and launches background assistants for ongoing monitoring. The announcement drew criticism from users and experts who raised concerns about reduced control over search results, AI-generated errors, and increased pressure on the open web.

Against this backdrop, privacy-focused search engine DuckDuckGo recorded a 18.1% average increase in US app installs between May 20 and May 25 compared to the prior week. The positive trend continued for six consecutive days, peaking at 30.5% on May 25.

On iOS, the numbers were even stronger — average growth of 33% week-over-week, with a peak of approximately 69%.

Traffic to noai.duckduckgo.com — a version of the search engine with all AI features disabled by default, including AI answers and image generation — also rose by an average of 22.7%.

DuckDuckGo CEO Gabriel Weinberg stated that Google is "force-feeding AI without an opt-out." Users, he said, want to decide for themselves how much they engage with such features.

That said, DuckDuckGo is not rejecting AI outright. The company offers Duck.ai — a no-registration-required service providing access to models from Anthropic, Meta, Mistral, and OpenAI. The company states that user IP addresses are masked before queries are sent to model providers, conversations are deleted within 30 days, and data is never used for training.

DuckDuckGo also offers Search Assist — its equivalent of Google's AI answers — and an AI Image Filter that removes AI-generated images from search results. DuckDuckGo spokesperson Kamyl Bazbaz noted that these features remain popular, but that the key factor for users is having a choice.

According to StatCounter, DuckDuckGo holds approximately 2% of the US search market. The company has previously argued that Google's dominance is reinforced by exclusive default browser agreements that lock in its search engine as the pre-installed option.