Many of the new installs are on iPhones within the US.
DuckDuckGo has reported “a sustained surge” of installs within the US within the week that adopted Google’s I/O developer convention, the place the larger firm introduced extra AI options for Search. The search engine firm says its app installs within the US have been up a mean of 18.1 p.c for six consecutive days, peaking at 30.5 p.c on Might 25. Many of the new customers are on iOS, with installs on iPhones exhibiting a mean progress of 33 p.c week-on-week and likewise peaking on Might 25 at 69.9 p.c.
As well as, visits to its noai.duckduckgo.com web site additionally grew a mean of twenty-two.7 p.c week-on-week, with its peak progress of 27.7 p.c occurring on Might 24. DuckDuckGo says its progress within the US over the previous week was a number of instances larger than the worldwide charge, suggesting that surge of installs was in “response to Google’s US-centric announcement” and never a worldwide pattern. It was additionally capable of maintain the expansion via Memorial Day weekend, which traditionally results in decrease exercise.
At I/O 2026, Google introduced a number of new AI-powered Search options, together with the Clever Search Field. Not like the odd Search field, the brand new one can match advanced queries and may course of movies, photos, recordsdata and even Chrome tabs as enter for individuals’s searches. It is price noting that the brand new Search field is rolling out in every single place the place AI Mode is obtainable, not simply within the US. Google AI Professional and Extremely subscribers are additionally having access to AI Search brokers, together with ones that run 24/7 within the background to collect data for customers.
We have seen fairly a couple of posts on Reddit from individuals making the change to DuckDuckGo after Google’s bulletins. “Google is force-feeding AI with no approach to choose out,” stated DuckDuckGo CEO CEO Gabriel Weinberg. “As outcome, their outcomes are getting worse, not higher. We wish to be the place that places customers in cost and permits them to resolve how a lot or how little AI they need. That is why we’re seeing a spike in individuals coming to DuckDuckGo this week, it is so simple as that.” To be clear, DuckDuckGo additionally has AI options for its search engine, together with ones much like Google’s AI Overviews and AI Mode. Nonetheless, they’ll simply be switched off in settings, and other people can choose to go to the noai.duckduckgo.com web site the place all AI options are off by default.
