By Paul Thurrott
Publication Date: 2026-05-26 19:57:00
Depending on your view of the promise of AI, last week’s Google I/O tsunami of news was either thrilling or terrifying. For those in the latter camp, DuckDuckGo offers some hope: It says that usage of its private and AI-free products and services is up dramatically since those announcements.
“Google is force-feeding AI with no way to opt out,” DuckDuckGo founder and CEO Gabriel Weinberg says. “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. Not only do we respect user choice, but also user privacy. Everything you do in DuckDuckGo is private, we don’t collect search histories or chats and nothing is used for AI training.”
Through the Memorial Day long weekend, DuckDuckGo experienced a mobile app installation surge 18.1 percent week…
