this post was submitted on 07 Aug 2026
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Its a generalized product targeting average people. Average people dont care AI/No AI they want the results and they use the AI summaries. If DDG hid it then they would just think it doesnt exist and go use google which provides them faster more convenient results.
We’re talking about the same duckduckgo that had a huge poll about this right? The only data point that exists regarding what people want is that of the 175,354 users who took the poll, only 10% wanted AI features.
Yes we are talking about ddg which has roughly 100 million users and put out a poll to which 175k said they didnt want AI.
You're assuming that everyone who didn't answer the poll is for AI, not exactly a good assumption considering the poll results.
Im not making that assumption at all.
You're constantly arguing that the sample is so strongly skewed against your position that the proportion of people who want AI is over 4 times (!) as much as in the sample. "Everyone" is an exaggeration, but the point remains. If you believe the sample is that skewed, then you have to provide evidence.
Thats not what I'm arguing. I'm saying most people dont care enough either way and based off research and polling ive seen that most people do use the features. So if most people use them and only a tiny fraction wants them gone you should keep them default and give those people a toggle.
When I'm saying 175k out of 100m I'm pointing out that its a tiny % of the user base. The people who were engaged enough to vote in that poll were the anti AI people. It was posted to all the anti AI subreddits and twitter feeds. It was a big call to action to try and prove no one wants it.
Its obviously where search is heading which is why ddg mentions in their blogs that they are working heavily on AI features. They have always been receptive to users so unlike google so they do give users the option to disable. If they had data that most were disabling we'd see that be the default.