DuckDuckGo pitches schools as Google's AI opt-out costs search
Seven Lights
DuckDuckGo is making a direct pitch to American school districts, two days after Google told schools they could turn off Gemini but that switching off its other artificial-intelligence features would cost them Google Search as well.
Gabriel Weinberg, the company’s founder and chief executive, posted documentation on X explaining how districts can change their default search engine to DuckDuckGo. “Get in touch for help,” he wrote. Kamyl Bazbaz, chief public affairs officer, was sharper: “Forcing AI on school children: how a monopolist behaves when they think people are powerless. Prove Google wrong.”
In an email to TechCrunch, DuckDuckGo said Google could easily turn off Search’s AI features for schools if it wanted to, a direct challenge to Google’s position that search and AI are too deeply integrated to separate. Ars Technica reported the trade-off plainly: schools may skip the AI tools, but they have to give up search too. TechRadar argued the episode should worry users beyond the classroom, since it shows how tightly a dominant search product can bind AI features to it.
The market at stake is large. Figures Google has published in previous years show around 50 million Chromebooks in schools and the Google Classroom platform serving more than 150 million users globally. DuckDuckGo, built on limiting data collection, sees an opening in a segment Google has historically dominated.
Google defended its decision after two days of backlash. The company said Gemini, Gemini Notebook and Search’s AI features would be off by default. Schools could enable each one individually, it said, and the change “give[s] schools more choice, not less.” Google also pointed to its Guided Learning technology, designed to walk students through problem-solving rather than hand over answers. Educators, the company acknowledged, have been asking for tools to remove AI from the learning process altogether.
The politics are unhelpful to Google. Tuesday’s elections saw voters in several states reject proposed artificial-intelligence data centres in their towns, and the incoming Democratic majority has signalled scrutiny of the technology sector. At the same time, classroom use of AI is now common practice, and districts that depend on Chromebooks for instruction face a real cost in switching search providers.
DuckDuckGo said it would help districts through the change. Districts must now decide how much search they are willing to trade for AI features they did not ask for.