DuckDuckGo Courts Schools After Google Ties AI to Search for Education

Google told schools on Tuesday that turning off its AI features would cost them Google Search itself — and DuckDuckGo immediately moved to convert that policy into market share in education. Gabriel Weinberg, DuckDuckGo's founder and CEO, pointed schools to online documentation explaining how to switch their default search engine, adding on X: "get in touch for help." The move targets a market where Google has historically dominated, and where the stakes are measured in tens of millions of devices.

The numbers explain why the opening matters. According to figures Google has published in previous years, around 50 million Chromebooks are deployed in schools, used by students and educators. Google Classroom, the company's learning platform, serves over 150 million users globally. Any search-engine default change affecting that installed base would represent one of the largest shifts in default settings since Google entrenched itself in education.

What exactly did Google announce?

On Tuesday, Google told schools they could turn off Gemini, its AI assistant. But the company said shutting off its other AI features would cost schools Google Search as well. After the backlash, Google defended its decision, saying it was just responding to schools' feedback. The company said Gemini, Gemini Notebook, and Search would be off by default, and schools could choose to enable them individually.

The problem is structural. Google Search now heavily uses AI, through AI Overviews (AI-generated summary boxes atop results) and a conversational AI Mode that answers users' queries directly. Schools that want AI-free search cannot simply disable a toggle, because AI is now embedded in the core product. In an email to TechCrunch, DuckDuckGo chastised Google for the decision, adding that Google could easily turn off Search's AI features for schools if it wanted to.

How did DuckDuckGo respond?

DuckDuckGo, a company that focuses on user privacy by limiting data collection, sees the moment as a route into a market where it has had limited presence. Weinberg's post on X directed educators to documentation for switching the default search engine. Kamyl Bazbaz, the company's chief public affairs officer, went further, writing: "forcing AI on school children: how a monopolist behaves when they think people are powerless. Prove Google wrong."

The word "monopolist" is not incidental. Bazbaz's framing positions Google's education policy within the broader antitrust context in which the company already operates, casting the search-AI bundling as an exercise of market power over a captive user base of students.

Is DuckDuckGo actually anti-AI?

No. DuckDuckGo offers its own set of AI features, including a chat interface called Duck.ai and an AI search assistant. The company's differentiation is control, not absence. Unlike Google, DuckDuckGo says it provides options to disable its AI features in both its search and browser settings. It also runs a dedicated website, noai.duckduckgo.com, where AI-assisted answers, AI-generated images, and AI feature suggestions are all turned off by default.

That opt-out posture is the core of its pitch to educators. Schools that want a conventional, links-based search experience without AI summaries can get it from DuckDuckGo today; from Google, they cannot, without losing Search entirely.

There is early evidence the pitch is working. The company reported earlier this year that its app installs were up 30%, which it attributes to users rejecting being force-fed Google's AI Search. A 30% install growth figure, driven by AI-averse users, suggests a real constituency for AI-off products — one that education, with its procurement cycles and district-level decisions, could amplify.

Why does the education fight matter now?

The clash lands amid a broader public reckoning over how much AI people will accept. As Tuesday night's elections indicated, voters do not want AI data centers built in their towns. But AI use at work and school has become common practice, which requires a more nuanced discussion than a simple yes or no.

Education sits at the sharp end of that nuance. Knowing that educators have struggled with AI, Google developed technology called "Guided Learning," designed to help kids learn by walking through problem-solving steps rather than just providing them an answer. It is Google's attempt to make AI pedagogically defensible. But educators are still asking for tools that let them remove AI from the learning process altogether — a request Google's Tuesday policy only partially grants, and only at the cost of losing Search.

That gap between what educators request and what Google offers is the market opportunity DuckDuckGo is chasing. The confrontation also previews a likely pattern across the industry: as AI becomes load-bearing in core products, vendors will bundle it by default, and rivals will compete on the ability to switch it off. For the roughly 50 million school Chromebooks and 150 million Google Classroom users, the question of who controls the default — the district, the vendor, or the student — has just become a competitive battleground.