DuckDuckGo Traffic Spikes After Google AI Overhauls Search

1 hour ago

DuckDuckGo just hit a new all-time high in search traffic on Monday, June 1, and it’s pretty clearly tied to what Google did at I/O last month.

The privacy-focused search engine emailed iPhone in Canada on Tuesday with some of the numbers. Since Google announced its AI search overhaul on May 19, which automatically pushes AI overviews to users, DuckDuckGo has seen a sustained traffic bump that hasn’t let up.

“Google claims AI overviews has over 2.5 billion monthly active users, but not a single one was given a choice,” added Kamyl Bazbaz, Chief Communications and Policy Officer, DuckDuckGo, in a statement to iPhone in Canada on Tuesday. “This is what user demand looks like, with every structural advantage Google has built over two decades stacked against it. Take those away, and you’re looking at much higher numbers.”

In the US, weekly installs jumped 61% compared to the week before Google’s announcement, and peaked at 76% above the daily average on June 1. iOS specifically went even harder, with weekly downloads soaring 95% above pre-announcement levels. DuckDuckGo is currently sitting as the third-ranked utility app in the US App Store, right behind Google Chrome.

In Canada under the Utilities category, a quick check shows DuckDuckGo in the App Store is ranked 7th, behind MyBell. The top three apps are from Google, led by its Google app, Chrome and then Google Authenticator.

The company says the growth is being driven largely by word of mouth on social media, especially Reddit, where users have been venting about being pushed into AI features they didn’t ask for, pointing out some threads have upvotes of 20k and 40k.

DuckDuckGo says you can turn AI features off completely in settings, and the company even runs a dedicated no-AI search site at noai.duckduckgo.com. There are also browser extensions for Chrome and Firefox that block AI features by default.

If the federal government passes Bill C-22 without major privacy revisions, DuckDuckGo said it would be pulling its VPN out of Canada.

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