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Installs of DuckDuckGo are soaring amid Google’s AI search push

DuckDuckGo has become popular with the anti-AI crowd. (Picture: generated)

Google has made it clear that they are no longer a search company, but an AI company — further expanding AI Mode, extending AI overviews, and changing the iconic search box. Some people aren’t having it.

One practical effect of this can be seen in downloads of alternative search engine DuckDuckGo, which have greatly increaesed in the last few weeks, TechCrunch writes.

From May 20 to May 25, just after Google unveiled a new search box, weekly installs went up 18.1%, peaking at 30% on May 25. It grew even stronger on iOS, peaking at 70% week on week in the same period.

— Google is force-feeding AI with no way to opt out, DuckDuckGo CEO Gabriel Weinberg tells TechCrunch, — We want to be the place that puts users in charge and allows them to decide how much or how little AI they want.

The search engine does use some AI to filter out images, and offers an AI chat product at duck.ai, but is famously privacy-focused, doesn’t store a thing, and also provides the AI-free noai.duckduckgo.com.

Go read the full story at TechCrunch

Google’s AI Overview is wrong tens of millions of times per hour, NYT finds

Google gets it right more often than not, but 1 in 10 queries result in errors. (Picture: Adobe)

Sure, the measured accuracy by AI lab Oumi ticks in at a decent 90% — but when you scale it up to the sheer mass of Google’s traffic of more than five trillion searches per year, you get mind-boggling numbers of hundreds of thousands of «inaccuracies» per minute, the New York Times writes.

The test, conducted on the Gemini 3 generation of AI Overviews, was made using the SimpleQA dataset intended to probe for chatbot accuracy. It contains more than 4,000 questions with real, verifiable answers, that was made by OpenAI in 2024, Ars Technica reports.

Google’s AI answer machine pops up on every query these days, but it is difficult to tell precisely which model it uses for each task. For simple web searches, it might well opt for one of the faster Flash models rather than the more advanced Pro. It might also give different answers to the same question just milliseconds apart.

Google also doesn’t like the measurement being used, telling the NYT that «This study has serious holes. It doesn’t reflect what people are actually searching on Google.»

Read more: New York Times, Ars Technica.

Google launches Personal Intelligence, based on trove of data held on people

Google wants to get to know you better by attaching more data to your account — to provide «personal» answers. (Picture: Google)

In what was probably just a question of time, Google has found a way to tie all its personal data on people to its AI products.

Personal Intelligence, launched today, lets Gemini and, later, AI Mode, draw information from Gmail, Google Photos, YouTube and Search history to give you a more «personalized» experience.

Continue reading “Google launches Personal Intelligence, based on trove of data held on people”

Reddit is betting on AI search to navigate vast trove of data

Reddit is about to place AI search right on all of its content pages. — Reddit is going all in on AI search for its huge content of 20 billion posts and comments. (Picture: Reddit)

If there’s anything Reddit is famous for outside of daily memes, easy news and activism — it is the very fact it is all pedal-driven. As in it is full of human connections, giving tonnes of answers to questions ranging from the trivial to the weird.

The company grew its revenue by 78% year-over-year this quarter, and now has a plan to drive even more traffic to its services; AI.

Continue reading “Reddit is betting on AI search to navigate vast trove of data”

Google experiments with audio overviews in Search results

The feature, only available for Labs users in the US in English, lets you generate «quick, conversational audio overviews» for «certain» search queries.

That should let the audio play for you while you are multitasking or turning attention elsewhere.

«It gives a lay of the land», Google says, and The Verge notes it can also be set to a feature known to many NotebookLM users — with two simulated «podcast hosts» enthusiastically debating the results for you.

You can opt into the feature on Google Labs, and the feature will then pop up as an alternative under Google’s AI overviews on the results page.

Read more: Google’s blog announcement, and a summary at The Verge

Microsoft NLWeb tools offer easy AI search for any website

NLWeb is touted as a revolution, but it's catching on just yet. — NLWeb will turn search queries into chatbots, but uptake is not revolutionary, just yet. (Picture: Microsoft)

According to Microsoft, it’s the biggest thing on the web since HTML, leveraging easy code to include on websites and turning them into an AI chatbot app.

This should let websites easily tune into the revolution of AI search, allowing for natural language processing right from the search bar, says Microsoft.

Natural language process as revolution
This is fourth revolution in computers, says Ramanathan V. Guha, a technical fellow at Microsoft, — being able to communicate with applications, and computers in general, with free-form language, to The Verge.

Continue reading “Microsoft NLWeb tools offer easy AI search for any website”

Google is testing «AI Mode» directly on the front page

Google is experimenting with replacing the "I'm Feeling Lucky"-button with "AI Mode." — Can you spot the difference? Google is experimenting with a change on the front page. (Picture: screenshot)

Replacing the time honored «I’m Feeling lucky,» select users now see «AI Mode» instead.

By doing this, albeit in their Labs section, Google shows they are considering using some of the most valuable screen real estate on the planet to further promote its Gemini AI models.

Continue reading “Google is testing «AI Mode» directly on the front page”

Apple says considering AI search in Safari, but «not good enough yet»

Apple is considering revamping search in Safari to become more AI-focused. (Picture: Kārlis Dambrāns, CC BY 2.0)

In the Google antitrust remedies trial, Apple’s senior vice president of services, Eddy Cue, said they are «actively looking at» using AI search tools in Safari, writes Gizmodo.

Continue reading “Apple says considering AI search in Safari, but «not good enough yet»”

DuckDuckGo: Ikke så privat likevel

Nå også med sporingskapsler fra Microsoft.

Mange bruker DuckDuckGo sin nettleser fordi de lover kompromissløs beskyttelse av personvernet ditt.

Nå har de imidlertid fått en nokså skarp ripe i lakken.

I følge BleepingComputer godtar nettleseren sporingskapsler likevel.

De har avslørt at Microsoft Bing og Linkedin har sporingskapsler i nettleseren deres – som gjør nettopp at du kan bli sporet når du søker og flytter deg rundt på nettet.
Continue reading “DuckDuckGo: Ikke så privat likevel”