DuckDuckGo installs up 30% as users reject Googles AI search

Google announced an overhaul to its Search product during its annual developer conference. The changes convert the search box into a conversational engine that provides AI Overviews answering questions directly and an AI Mode for follow-up questions. A spokesperson for the company said AI Overviews have existed for two years and AI Mode is not the default. Critics have said the features will kill the open web, produce inaccurate responses, and remove user control. Simple searches have become more complicated under the system. DuckDuckGo Chief Executive Gabriel Weinberg said Google is force-feeding AI without an opt-out and that results are getting worse. He stated the company wants to let users decide how much AI to use. DuckDuckGo reported that U.S. app installs rose 18.1 percent week-over-week on average from May 20 to May 25 compared to the prior week. The increase lasted six consecutive days and peaked at 30.5 percent on May 25. iOS installs grew at a 33 percent average rate week-over-week and hit 69.9 percent at peak. The search engine also said visits to its noai.duckduckgo.com page grew 22.7 percent week-over-week on average and peaked at 27.7 percent on May 24. The page disables AI features by default. Growth was stronger in the U.S., and DuckDuckGo gained users over the Memorial Day weekend when traffic usually drops. App analytics company Apptopia found a 29 percent increase in average daily U.S. downloads and a 12 percent global increase during the period. DuckDuckGo offers Duck.ai, a free product that 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. The service requires no account and keeps chats private by stripping IP addresses, deleting conversations within 30 days, and barring use for training. Weinberg said the company respects user choice and privacy and collects no search histories or chats for AI training. Chief communications and policy officer Kamyl Bazbaz said people just want a choice. A Google spokesperson pointed to a blog post noting that AI Mode has surpassed one billion monthly users with queries more than doubling every quarter since launch.