As artificial intelligence becomes more common across major tech platforms, not everyone is on board. When DuckDuckGo asked users how they felt about AI in search, roughly 90% said they didn’t want those features at all.
The company held the vote on VoteYesOrNoAI.com using an anonymous, untracked poll that attracted over 175,000 participants. Nearly 90% of respondents said they didn’t want to interact with AI features in any form.
DuckDuckGo is responding by formalizing a choice-based model. The company has introduced two dedicated search URLs: noai.duckduckgo.com disables AI Search Assist and AI links while applying an anti-slop image filter, while yesai.duckduckgo.com enables all AI features by default.
According to founder Gabriel Weinberg, this is exactly the kind of choice most tech companies don’t offer. He’s said that Big Tech tends to ignore users who want to fully opt out of AI and large language models. DuckDuckGo, which processes hundreds of millions of searches daily, has long leaned into privacy and user control, making it a natural home for people uneasy about constant tracking and automation.
DuckDuckGo confirmed the online poll was open and untracked, without bot detection, making it impossible to differentiate between frequent users and the general public. The outcome may point to entrenched resistance to LLMs and chatbots within privacy-minded communities.
The move follows rising complaints about the quality of search results on competing platforms. Some users argue that a heavier focus on AI-generated responses, particularly at Google, has reduced the usefulness of traditional links. Although DuckDuckGo can’t offer a completely AI-free experience, drawing from more than 400 sources outside Google, the new structure aims to reduce unwanted AI content for those who prefer to avoid it. At least for the moment, DuckDuckGo is giving users a more straightforward way to decide how they want search to work.
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