DuckDuckGo Installs Jump as Users Reject Google's AI Search

When Google rebuilt its search box around AI answers at its developer conference in May, the reaction in public was mostly enthusiasm. The reaction in the download charts looked different.

DuckDuckGo, the privacy-focused search engine, says its United States app installs climbed sharply through late May. The company told TechCrunch that installs rose an average of 18 percent week over week between 20 and 25 May, peaking above 30 percent on the 25th. On iOS the jump was steeper, averaging a third and briefly approaching 70 percent.

The trigger was Google's decision, announced at I/O 2026, to make AI Overviews the default response to most queries and to turn the search bar into a conversational system that answers questions directly rather than returning a list of links. We covered that shift when it landed in Google's redesign of the search box.

DuckDuckGo also pointed to rising traffic at its AI-free results page, a version of the site with every AI feature switched off by default. Visits there grew about 23 percent week over week, the company said.

Google is force-feeding AI with no way to opt out. 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 was Gabriel Weinberg, DuckDuckGo's chief executive, in a statement timed to the install figures. The framing is self-serving, and the absolute numbers stay modest next to Google's enormous share of search. A 30 percent rise in installs at a small competitor does not threaten a company that handles most of the world's queries.

Still, the signal is worth noting. Critics of the redesign have argued that AI Overviews can surface confident but wrong answers, and that routing readers to a summary starves the open web of the clicks that fund it. The DuckDuckGo bump suggests a slice of users would rather opt out than be handed the answer. Whether that slice grows is the more interesting question, and one Google will be watching as closely as anyone.