Privacy-focused search engine DuckDuckGo has announced that its opt-in, generative AI-limiting “No AI” search page has received three times as much traffic since Google’s latest round of updates and PR for AI mode search. In addition to user privacy, DuckDuckGo is positioning itself as a destination for user choice—one that’s still keeping its options open with AI.
Three days ago, we reported on how installs of DuckDuckGo’s app were up by almost a third following Google’s latest push for AI in search. This latest announcement from DuckDuckGo appears to exclusively pertain to noai.duckduckgo.com, its AI opt-out search option.
Since Google revealed its plans for an AI search overhaul, visits to our “No AI” search page have tripled…and they’re still rising! Want to make it your default on Chrome or Firefox? Grab our No-AI extensions and banish AI-assisted answers, chat, and AI images. (1/3)
— @duckduckgo.com (@duckduckgo.com.bsky.social) 2026-05-30T20:57:54.517Z
“Since Google revealed its plans for an AI search overhaul, visits to our ‘No AI’ search page have tripled,” the company wrote on Bluesky. “And they’re still rising! Want to make it your default on Chrome or Firefox? Grab our No-AI extensions and banish AI-assisted answers, chat, and AI images.”
DuckDuckGo also provided links for its browser extensions to make its AI-free search the address bar default in both Google Chrome and Firefox.
This popularity has followed a long push by Google for generative AI features in its ubiquitous search engine. While it hasn’t yet replaced the classic 10 links results page, as some have suggested, Google’s AI mode search has been placed in a more central location in the main search homepage, giving it primacy over traditional search in the UI.
This was accompanied by new public statements by Google CEO Sundar Pichai about AI adoption and its importance to Google, and follows years of creeping AI features at the forefront of the user experience, with AI Overview being a prime example.
It’s worth noting that the No AI search doesn’t stem from a principled anti-AI stance on the part of DuckDuckGo—it’s more a pragmatically benevolent centering of user choice. DuckDuckGo offers a corresponding AI maximalist experience on the other end of the spectrum with duck.ai.
It’s a sensible, perhaps mercenary business decision I’m inclined to raise an eyebrow at but not necessarily lambast. As the sages of the Simpsons writers room once put it, “Abortions for some, miniature American flags for others.”
DuckDuckGo’s AI-free search is possibly the most extensive option when it comes to limiting your exposure to the tech on the web: In addition to lacking an AI overview, it seems to filter out AI text and image results.
But it’s not the only game in town. There are Google Chrome extensions such as Bye Bye, Google AI which hide Google’s own AI features. I’ve been kicking it old school: I set Chrome to default to Google’s classic-style “Web” search, which is otherwise buried in the UI. I might consider a switch to something more extensive like DuckDuckGo, though, particularly if Google continues to sacrifice search’s basic utility for its AI experiments.
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