DuckDuckGo pitches itself to schools amid backlash over Google’s AI policy

After backlash over how AI is wired into Google’s education stack, Google said schools can turn Gemini off — but shutting off other AI features would also cost them Google Search. DuckDuckGo is pitching hard into that gap.

Google’s classroom footprint is enormous: on the order of 50 million Chromebooks in schools and over 150 million Google Classroom users globally, per figures Google has published in prior years. A default-search switch at that scale is not a niche privacy play; it is a distribution fight.

DuckDuckGo’s public messaging has been blunt. CEO Gabriel Weinberg pointed schools to docs for flipping the default. Chief public affairs officer Kamyl Bazbaz framed Google’s move as a monopolist forcing AI on schoolchildren.

Our take is that DuckDuckGo is right about the choice problem even if the politics are loud. Educators have been asking for tools that let them remove AI from the learning loop entirely. Google’s Guided Learning product tries to walk kids through problem-solving instead of dumping answers, which is a useful design instinct. But “Gemini off by default, Search still AI-shaped” is not the clean control schools thought they were getting.

Google’s follow-up said Gemini, Gemini Notebook, and Search will be off by default and that schools can enable them individually — framed as more choice, not less. The catch DuckDuckGo and many educators hear is that modern Google Search is already laced with AI Overviews and conversational AI Mode. Turning “Search” back on may not restore the non-AI experience they remember.

We’re not anti-AI in classrooms. DuckDuckGo isn’t either — it ships Duck.ai and an AI search assistant. The difference that matters is opt-out that actually works, including a dedicated no-AI surface at noai.duckduckgo.com. App installs up 30% earlier this year as users rejected force-fed AI Search suggests demand for that control is real.

If useful AI is going into schools, it should arrive as a switch educators can throw, not a bundle they cannot unbundle. Google still owns the Chromebook and Classroom rails. DuckDuckGo is offering an escape hatch. I’m watching how many districts actually flip the default — and whether Google responds with a true AI-off Search mode for education before the pitch sticks.

Sarah Perez at TechCrunch covers DuckDuckGo’s outreach after Google’s Tuesday education-AI announcement and the subsequent clarification from Google’s news account. Midterm hostility to local AI data centers is the wider public mood the piece nods to.