DuckDuckGo’s AI-Free Search Gains 28% More Visits Following Google’s Insistence That People Love AI Mode
May 27th, 2026Via: PC Gamer:
These days, a typical Google Search feels like an obstacle course. Type out ‘upcoming PC games 2026’ and your gaze has to swerve around a chunky AI overview which recycles the work of human writers in a bid to kneecap efforts to click away from Google. It’s a bleak state of affairs for what was once the premier discovery tool for the internet, and as such many users are looking for alternative search engines.
DuckDuckGo has been one major winner of this Google Search abandonment. Just for a start, visits to its AI-free search page noai.duckduckgo.com between May 20 to May 25 are said to have increased by 22.7% on average week-on-week, with the figures peaking May 24 at 27.7%.
The DuckDuckGo mobile app saw installs spike in the US by 18.1% on average compared to the previous week. TechCrunch reported this growth was sustained over six days, peaking at 30.5% on May 25. An even greater number of iOS users hit download on the app though, with installs seeing an average week-on-week growth of 33% and a peak of 69.9%.
