For 20 years, Google made it hard to leave. DuckDuckGo never cracked more than about 2% of US search, per TechCrunch.
Then Google rolled out its biggest search update in two decades. AI was baked into the default.
Within a week, DuckDuckGo installs were spiking.
The Numbers
DuckDuckGo said US app installs grew 18.1% week-over-week on average. That was between May 20 and May 25.
Growth peaked at 30.5% on May 25. iOS installs ran even hotter.
They averaged 33% week-over-week. And peaked at 69.9%.
Apptopia, a third-party data firm, confirmed the trend. Its data showed a 29% jump in US daily downloads.
It also showed a 12% rise in global downloads. Even DuckDuckGo's AI-free search page saw traffic climb.
Visits to noai.duckduckgo.com averaged 22.7% week-over-week growth. They peaked at 27.7% on May 24.
The growth also held over Memorial Day weekend. That's a stretch when traffic usually dips.
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Why Now
At its annual dev event, Google said the search box will get more chat-like. AI Overviews will answer questions first.
AI Mode will let users ask follow-ups inside the result. A Google rep noted that AI Mode is not the default.
The firm said AI Overviews have been around for two years. Google also pointed to a blog post from VP of Search Elizabeth Reid.
She said AI Mode has crossed one billion monthly users. DuckDuckGo CEO Gabriel Weinberg fired back in a Tuesday statement.
"Google is force-feeding AI with no way to opt out." Kamyl Bazbaz, the firm's chief comms and policy officer, kept it shorter.
"People just want a choice," he said.
What To Watch
A 30% spike in app installs is small in absolute terms. DuckDuckGo is still a fraction of Google's market.
But this is the first time in years that Google has handed a rival a real opening. The bigger pressure is on Google's own AI infrastructure spend.
Every AI-powered query costs real money to serve. A user who switches to a smaller engine is a user who doesn't see Google's ads.
The same goes for users who try its privacy-first Duck.ai chatbot.
Duck.ai is free and doesn't ask for an account. It also runs models from Anthropic, Meta, Mistral, and OpenAI.
The chats stay private because DuckDuckGo strips the user's IP before requests go out. It also deletes chats within 30 days.
That's a real opt-out from the AI default Google just made the standard. Google still owns the search market.
The question is whether this is the first real crack. Most past defection waves have faded fast.
This one is set up by Google's own product change. That's a new thing.
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