Google AI Overview recommends DuckDuckGo when users search 'no ai,' contradicting itself

Normal
,
1

DuckDuckGo recently shared a screenshot on X: when a user searches for “no ai” on Google, Google’s own AI Overviews feature pops up at the top of the results and proactively suggests users switch to DuckDuckGo’s “No AI Search” page or adjust Brave browser settings to block generative content — in other words, Google’s AI just handed free advertising to a competitor. A PiunikaWeb reporter replicated this search behavior and got the same result. Google currently does not support permanently disabling AI Overviews in account settings, only offering a workaround of manually switching to the „Web“ filter each time. It’s worth noting that DuckDuckGo itself also has an AI feature called „Search Assist“ enabled by default, but offers a one-click toggle to turn it off, and its no-AI search page saw traffic triple after the Google I/O conference.

PiunikaWeb | DuckDuckGo