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DuckDuckGo poll says 90% don't want AI in search
(www.pcworld.com)
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this post was submitted on 10 Mar 2026
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Wow, people rage baiting about an issue that already has a fix. Why am I not surprised?
It should be opposite though. They should keep the top domain AI free, and introduce a subdomain with AI.
As far as I can tell, the top domain does not use AI by default, and you have to toggle it. Even the top level summary article is just a wikipedia article rather than an AI summary. It seems they experimented with the AI for a bit, and after feedback like that given above, adapted to the desires of the community. You can fully turn AI options off too, if even the sight of "search assist" or "duck.ai" buttons you can click is despicable to you.
If you turn off all ai features in ddg, it turns them back on by itself. It's infuriating.
Just tested a few searches on the top domain in a private window with no setting changes. It looks like some search terms invoke the AI and others don't, so that explains some differences people are seeing. I saw no change in behavior between desktop and mobile.
As someone who actually likes AI (local open models only though), I agree it needs to be off by default in all cases purely on the grounds of energy usage.