DuckDuckGo saw a sharp rise in U.S. app installs in late May 2026, following Google’s announcement at its annual I/O developer conference that it would overhaul its search engine by replacing traditional blue-link results with AI-driven, conversational responses.
DuckDuckGo reported that U.S. app installs rose 18.1% week-over-week on average between May 20 and May 25, compared to the prior week, with growth sustained for six consecutive days and peaking at 30.5% on May 25. On iOS, the figures were higher still, with week-over-week growth averaging 33% and peaking at 69.9%. Third-party analytics firm Apptopia independently recorded a 29% increase in average daily U.S. downloads and a 12% increase globally over the same period.
Google’s overhaul transforms its search box into a conversational engine that expands for longer queries, anticipates user intent, and uses AI Overviews to answer questions directly rather than returning a list of links. The company also unveiled a more seamless AI Mode allowing follow-up questions within AI Overviews. A Google spokesperson noted that AI Mode has surpassed one billion monthly users, with queries more than doubling every quarter since launch.
Critics have argued the changes could harm the open web, surface inaccurate responses, and remove control from users who prefer traditional search. DuckDuckGo CEO Gabriel Weinberg said in a statement: “Google is force-feeding AI with no way to opt out. As a result, their results are getting worse, not better.”
Visits to DuckDuckGo’s AI-free search page, noai.duckduckgo.com, also grew, averaging 22.7% week-over-week and peaking at 27.7% on May 24. The page disables all AI features by default. DuckDuckGo noted the growth continued through the Memorial Day weekend, a period when it typically sees a traffic dip.
Despite currently holding only around 2% of the U.S. search market, the spike suggests some users may be actively seeking alternatives as Google deepens its AI integration. DuckDuckGo does offer its own optional AI product, Duck.ai, which provides access to models including OpenAI’s GPT-5 mini and Anthropic’s Claude 4.5 Haiku, with privacy protections including IP address stripping and conversation deletion within 30 days.
Source: TechCrunch