DuckDuckGo said traffic to its No AI search page tripled after Google’s AI-heavy search overhaul, a sharp sign that some users are actively looking for a version of search without artificial intelligence at the center. The jump began after Google’s I/O event on May 19 and had reached three times previous levels by May 28.
The timing matters because Google is pushing AI deeper into the product people use most. Sundar Pichai said people love the new search experience, which Google has described as its biggest upgrade in 25 years and tied to Gemini 3.5 Flash, while DuckDuckGo is now seeing a measurable countercurrent from people who want something else.
DuckDuckGo reported the increase on its Bluesky account and said daily visits to the No AI page stayed about 84% above the prior average after the announcement. The company also said weekly app installations in the United States rose 21%, with iOS installs up 33%, suggesting the reaction was not confined to curiosity on a web page. DuckDuckGo has already moved to capture that interest, releasing a browser extension for Chrome and Firefox that makes No AI search the default in the address bar, while support for Edge and Opera is still being built.
That surge does not mean Google is suddenly vulnerable. Cloudflare data for 2025 still puts Google at roughly 90% of the global search market, which is the kind of dominance that turns even a fast-moving burst of interest into a small crack in the wall rather than a break in it. DuckDuckGo also offers AI-powered search tools of its own, so the shift is less a rejection of AI altogether than a sign that some users are uneasy about how deeply it is being embedded into everyday search.
What the numbers do show is a live test of whether frustration with AI-generated answers and forced AI integration can move people off the default search habit. For now, it has moved enough of them to make a no-AI page a story. Whether it becomes a lasting change in where they search is the next measure that matters.
