The number of DuckDuckGo app installations in the U.S. has increased following Google's major search update focused on AI. This was reported by TechCrunch citing company data.

At the I/O conference, Google announced that traditional search results featuring a list of links will gradually be replaced by an AI agent that answers queries, performs tasks, and launches background assistants for monitoring. This has drawn criticism from users and experts who fear a loss of control over search results, errors in responses, and pressure on the open web.

Amid this, the privacy-focused search engine DuckDuckGo reported an average installation increase of 18.1% in the U.S. from May 20 to May 25 compared to the previous week. This positive trend continued for six consecutive days, peaking at 30.5% on May 25.

The situation on iOS is even better, with an average growth of 33% compared to the previous week, reaching a peak of around 69%.

Traffic to the page noai.duckduckgo.com, where all AI features, including responses and image generation, are disabled by default, also increased, with visits rising by an average of 22.7%.

DuckDuckGo CEO Gabriel Weinberg stated that Google is "forcing AI on users without an option to opt-out." He emphasized that users want to decide how actively to use such features themselves.

However, DuckDuckGo is not completely abandoning artificial intelligence. The company offers the Duck.ai service without mandatory registration, providing access to models from Anthropic, Meta, Mistral, and OpenAI. They claim that users' IP addresses are hidden before sending requests to model providers, and conversations are deleted within 30 days and not used for training.

The search engine also features Search Assist (similar to Google’s AI responses) and an AI Image Filter to exclude generated images from results. DuckDuckGo representative Kamil Bazbaz noted that these features remain popular, but the key factor for users is the ability to choose.

According to StatCounter, DuckDuckGo holds about 2% of the search market in the U.S. The company has previously stated that Google's dominance is bolstered by exclusive agreements that make its search engine the default in browsers.

It’s worth noting that in May, Google tightened its policy on the use of search AI tools following a public experiment by BBC journalist Thomas German.