DuckDuckGo installations surged by 18% following Google's removal of blue links, with a notable increase of 70% on Apple devices.

      DuckDuckGo’s app installs in the US increased by an average of 18% week-over-week from May 20 to May 25, maintaining this growth for six days and peaking at 30% on Memorial Day Monday. On Apple devices, installs surged by 33% weekly, with a single-day high of nearly 70%. This uptick followed Google's announcement of significant changes to its search engine at I/O 2026, where it aims to replace traditional blue links with AI tools that provide direct answers, complete tasks, and run monitoring agents. Many users interpreted this shift as a departure from the traditional search experience they have relied on for the past 20 years.

      Moreover, traffic to DuckDuckGo’s AI-free search page, noai.duckduckgo.com, also increased, averaging a 23% week-over-week rise and peaking at 28% on Sunday. This page completely disables AI-generated responses, offering users a straightforward results list that differs from Google’s evolving format. CEO Gabriel Weinberg commented, “Google is force-feeding AI with no way to opt out,” noting that this could lead to poorer search outcomes and prompting users to seek alternatives.

      The increase in DuckDuckGo downloads accelerated following revelations that Google Chrome was installing a 4 GB AI model, Gemini Nano, on users’ devices without clear consent or notification. The combination of mandatory AI in search and undisclosed AI installations on devices has created a trust issue that DuckDuckGo is capitalizing on. However, DuckDuckGo is not branding itself as anti-AI; instead, it intends to empower users to decide how much AI they want, operating its AI service, duck.ai, which offers models from Anthropic, Meta, Mistral, and OpenAI while ensuring user privacy.

      The key difference lies between choice and compulsion, as Google is implementing AI as the default option without an opt-out, while DuckDuckGo is presenting AI as an alternative alongside traditional search. Users migrating between the two services may not necessarily oppose AI; they simply prefer not to be coerced into using it.

      The transition from traditional search to AI-generated responses is giving rise to new business opportunities. Peec AI, for instance, achieved $10 million in annual recurring revenue (ARR) within six months by assisting brands in tracking their visibility in AI search results like ChatGPT. This structural change driving DuckDuckGo usage is also creating demand for generative engine optimization tools.

      Apple's upcoming iOS 27 will allow users to select different AI models for Siri and set third-party services as defaults for streaming. Overall, the trend in the industry seems to be moving toward user choice on AI rather than forced integration, contrasting with Google’s approach.

      DuckDuckGo utilizes search results from Microsoft’s Bing index, in addition to its web crawler and various sources, which some critics view with skepticism. Nonetheless, DuckDuckGo applies its own privacy measures and ranking systems on top of this foundational data. Although DuckDuckGo holds about 3% of the US search market, the 18% increase in installs doesn’t pose a real threat to Google’s market dominance. However, the implications of such a notable shift in user behavior are significant, especially if a major product announcement from a search engine leads users to seek alternatives.

      In the past year, Google’s Gemini has increased its share of AI web traffic from 5.7% to 21.5%, while ChatGPT’s share fell from 86.7% to 64.5%. The AI search market is rapidly evolving, and the key question remains whether Google’s decision to integrate AI into its core search offering will enhance this growth or drive away users who prefer traditional search functionality over unrequested AI assistance.