DuckDuckGo Go Viral for "No-AI" from Search Results

Speaker A: Duckduckgo is leaning into kind of this anti AI sentiment. And if m. I'm being honest, I don't think this is a bad marketing play. You know me, I love marketing. That's my background. And I think DuckDuckGo is doing a masterclass here specifically. A lot of this trend started when Google announced at Google I O that they were going to be integrating AI more deeply into their search engine. And basically by default, everything is going to be an AI search. Um, um, which they have a lot of cool features in there. And we had Logan Kilpatrick from Google on, on the podcast, he was talking about it. And honestly, I got excited. And you know, they're kind of pitching this as the biggest shift in Google search for 20 years. But as always, not everyone's excited about change. And when you say the biggest shift in AI or in, in Google search in 20 years, there's probably a lot of people that don't want that shift. They want it a different way. And so DuckDuckGo is capitalizing on this. I'm gonna kick this over to you, Connor, to break down what they're doing, but I think from a marketing side, I'm excited.

Speaker B: Yeah, I agree. I hadn't really thought. It's funny, like, your, your brain goes there immediately. I don't, I don't tend to think of that as, uh, marketing, but I think you're absolutely right. I mean, listen, DuckDuckGo has an absolute tiny fraction of the search engine market, right? I mean, it's, it's, it's, it's tiny. And you guys probably know DuckDuckGo. Actually. Jaden, do you use DuckDuckGo?

Speaker A: Don't. But I use Brave as a browser instead of. So.

Speaker B: That's right. That's right. Yeah, I knew you sort of like an alternative one. DuckDuckGo. Guys, the, the, um, you know, the value of DuckDuckGo, the reason why people love DuckDuckGo, it's high in privacy, right? Like, it doesn't, you know, you're not creating profiles, anything like that. And like, look, we love Google, love these big companies. We love our sort of like our Google workspace, but privacy is, is not a thing. I mean, you know. Well, you just have to sort of like, admit that when you go onto the Internet, like, it just knows everything about you. Like, AI is the least of our problems when it comes to, uh, privacy. Just, it's. The Internet has been scraping you for years and years and years. So DuckDuckGo is, is this alternative, right? It's this alternative where it's like, hey, listen, like, we are super into privacy. That is our thing. And if they're just known for that, then that's great because, you know, again, like, you can have a lot of different kinds of search engines, but if you're just trying to compete with Google, you just have no chance. And so this new thing that they have is like literally this giant branding that says no AI and it says like, sort of like you have to obviously kind of like turn this on. I think it's like, Noai duckduckdo.com something like that anyway, so. But once it's on there, it's not exactly like, um, incognito browsing or something like that. And those things are really powerful. If you're sort of like, you know, just trying to sort of like, you, uh, know, do things and things keep screwing up, all that sort of stuff. Even in AI, Like, I like, I like to use like the, you know, incognito things in Chrome or not in Chrome, sorry, in Claude, just because I do a lot of demos.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: But with this, like, essentially DuckDuckGo is saying is like, hey, you know how everything's getting more AI, well, we're getting less AI. And now I don't know how that would have played in, let's call it late 2023 Jane, but right now, holy cow, like, there is like, this feels like one of these science fiction movies where, you know, if you like, follow Isaac Asimov or anything like that, like, where robots were like taken out of the universe because, like, people like, hated robots. Like, there is a backlash against, uh, AI right now. And we totally understand why. We've seen it very, uh, viscerally, uh, in terms of, uh, you know, commencement speeches, just everything getting booed. If you go into these big companies, like, I mean, people sort of like, you know, lean into it because they have to lean into it. But then when you get sort of these anonymous surveys, like, uh, I'm telling you, Jaden, and I know this with every fiber of my being, like, a lot of people just wish AI had never been created. Why? Why? Because most of America and, and the world is not like us. We are in a bubble here in this little podcast, folks. We're like, this is awesome. This is exciting. Most people just want to go home at 6 and now we're telling them, hey, if you don't learn, learn this new technology, you're gonna be out of a job. Like, how terrifying is that? And DuckDuckGo like, yeah, let's burn this thing to the ground. Right? And so all of a sudden all these people who are like, well, what's. I just want Google Search. I want my old way of doing things. And now Google Search is giving me AI overviews. And in fairness, Google is moving, uh, and I say slowly, Gemini is moving fast, but Google Search is moving slowly. And you and I have talked about this, and we talked about this with Robbie Stein, who is head of product at Search. We had him on the, on the, on our, on our podcast. This idea that Google Search should move slow. Like, not everybody's on board with AI. Not everybody's comfortable with AI. So, Jayden, I actually love this move and I'm wondering now, and you know, with your marketing hat on too, is this a lane for other people? Because on LinkedIn and I'm not going to name names, but the people who crush AI and say like, Sam Altman is the devil, that is click bait. Uh, because people love to hate on this stuff.

Speaker A: Yes.

Speaker B: So I don't know, Jayden, just in terms of the marketing, uh, of this, like, how are you sort of like seeing other companies maybe jumping on this bandwagon, giving. Giving, uh, g. Giving the sort of the sense of like, yeah, we are, we're with you people.

Speaker A: Yeah. Well, okay, first of all, I'm gonna have to pull up some LinkedIn posts, uh, to show off because I follow a bunch of people that, um, that post, like satirical AI related stuff and it cracks me up. But yeah, people love to hate on AI, on LinkedIn for sure. Which I think gives you a good sentiment from like White Collar, where, where maybe people like inside your company you get mandated or you need to use it or you just use it. But like, in reality, like you mentioned people, a lot of people have this fantasy like, what if it never existed and things never changed? Which is where a lot of us change is uncomfortable in a lot of times. Right. It can be exciting. You kind of have to choose whether you embrace it or whether you resist it. But, uh, another conversation. One thing I do think that's cool with this DuckDuckGo thing right now though, is it's not just on their website. They also actually have a browser extensions on Chrome and on Firefox. So you can go and get this added. Even if you're. If you use Chrome or if you use other browsers, you get this on there. And what it does that I think is cool, great use case for everyone. Even if you love AI is in the search results. Um, it can actually block out AI generated images. So like, if you're on Google Images looking for something, it can detect which images it believes are AI generated and it will block those out so you don't see them in and on websites. I think that's really cool. Um, I'm curious how good it is because as someone that runs a AI generated or AI assisted news site, which is my site, aichat daily dot com, this is interesting to me because every single, um, picture that used to go above an article, I used to have ChatGPT generated. Then they started being like, I'm like, uh, ah, they're not that high quality. Plus I had to pay like 50 cents per image. It just kind of got expensive. And so eventually I went and sourced my images from a lot of different places. Um, some of them I'd get from Wikipedia, like pictures of a company's headquarters and it get in there. Some of them I would literally go and find like a company's logo, give it to ChatGPT and say, like, put this logo on a wall so it looks like a real photo. And, and I'm curious if those would be detected or how good its AI image generation detection is. Anyways, there's so much to it, but I definitely think you're right. There is a trend. People are, uh, people want to block that stuff out. I totally agree. No one wants to feel like they're looking at a picture that's not real. Right. You want to feel like everything you see is real. Uh, dead. Internet theory isn't popular, but it's kind of true when you look at, you know, how many people are using AI to post all over the Internet on Facebook, Reddit and LinkedIn these days, like a huge percentage of that is AI generated. So it is an interesting kind of moment for humanity where we, we resist AI stuff and we like human generated stuff. And so this seems like a good way for DuckDuckGo to grow. As far as other companies doing similar things, I think, um, yeah, I think we'll see this. I was recently looking at a, uh, bunch of apps. So m. The first startup my wife and I ever created was called Self Pause. It was. It's, uh, a. Well, we kind of rebranded it as an AI Life coach, but originally it was just you recorded your voice saying positive affirmations and then you could like put music in the background and listen back. So it's like a meditation of your own voice. And then eventually we added like these AI features and they were called an AI Life coach. Okay. So we let it sit for Like, a couple years. And my wife recently rebuilt the entire thing from scratch. And the whole kind of theory behind the rebuild and what she's doing now is it is no longer an AI life coach. We're. We're taking the words AI right out of that. We've noticed a lot of our competitors in their apps are saying, like, no AI used in all the images on our apps. Like, no AI used is kind of like, uh, a quality control metric that people are saying. We kind of put it out when it was popular anyways. So things are changing, and I think from a marketing perspective, it's not for everyone. And some people don't care about AI. I recently saw. Oh, shoot, there was an article where some famous person, she was a Real Housewives of somewhere, I don't know, some influencer, right? She said she saw, uh, AI generated avatar on TikTok, like, showing off this purse or these, like, bags or something, and she's like, oh, like, I knew they're AI, but I liked the bags and I went and bought them anyways. So I think there's, like, there's an interesting moment. Some people care, some people don't. But it definitely is a good, I think, marketing gimmick for delineating, uh, quality.

Speaker B: Yeah, I think. I think that's fair. I. And it's, gosh, even just how you're talking about it, too. It's even, like, for me, right, Because I am all in on AI. I know you're all in on AI, all that kind of stuff. But, like, we're also, like, on, um, LinkedIn like, a ton, right? And, um, and it's just like, I just read comments and so many of them. Like, it's when people are, like, actually, like, writing their comments, it is like a breath of fresh air. And I'm wondering, you know, uh, you know, if you watch sort of like movies from, like, the 50s or shows from the 50s or at times depicting the, you know, the 50s, and they're all eating, like, you know, TV dinners and the microwave and like, all these things are, like, the height of, like, Jaden. I remember when I was growing up, my microwave had, like, you know, instructions for, like, how to cook whatever, and it had instructions for how to cook everything, like a full, like, roasted turkey in your microwave. People like, ye. You know what I mean? Like, just at the time, it was just completely and totally, uh, you. Technology is everything. Until people like, what are you talking about? Like, we don't. Not only that. Well, we don't even want our chickens in cages. Like, our chickens have to be, like, roaming through the woods before we, like, I don't know, devour them, I guess. I don't know why that's any better necessarily, but. But, you know, I mean, like, it's. We are completely going the other way on, like, food, for example. Right? I mean, like, hey, this is organic. Like, this is absolutely, I think, where AI is going because I'm already feeling it. There's just a. There's a yearning for real things, for real experiences and all that kind of stuff. Like, essentially what people want, I think, is, you know, they. What they want is people. I don't want to try to use jargon here, but, like, augmented by it, right? So, like, you know, that. That means that, you know, in. In legal, and legal is a really tricky one. Understood. But, like, what people want is, you know, they don't want to spend time, you know, they want their lawyers, like, spending time on whatever, on the doctors. Like, they'd rather have an AI note taker. Like, let that doctor be that doctor. So I think there is a mix, but boy, oh, boy, if we are not going to have backlash on this, And I think DuckDuckGo is, like, really leaning into this, I'd be surprised if this didn't really help them because it's just not the direction everybody else is going. And I love the idea that there are these sort of, like, you know, there are these possibilities out there. However, we have to know that this is not acceptable. Like, you can't go to the office and be like, you know, I don't really feel like using Excel today. I'm just going to use pen and paper. Like, your boss will be like, no, man, I'm paying you based on the fact that you use Excel to do. I know, but I just love that. I love doing the math myself. It's like, yeah, but you can't. So I just wonder, sort of like, if we're going to hit an equilibrium. I hope we do. But I do think that it's not just young people booing, uh, commencement speakers, folks. This is like a real thing out in the world. And if it is up to you, if you are in a company, to bring people along and to sort of, like, show the good of AI and to be real about it, you know, it's also killing the environment and it's also going to do, you know, it's going to be job displacement. I don't think we need to be Pollyannish and say, this is all great. It's not. It's not at all. But I think that sort of like the more that people just fall on one side of this fence, it's going to be dangerous for them and hurt them. And that's what I don't want to happen to, you know, half of humanity.

Speaker A: Yes, 100%. And as we wrap up the show, I just have to tell Connor about the greatest post I couldn't find it that I saw on LinkedIn. I don't know if you saw this one LinkedIn, but the guy, he said, why are we standing in the way of progress? And he had a picture of Central park and then he had a giant data center like built in the middle of all of Central Park. Anyways, it was beautiful. It triggered so many people. Endless. Obviously he was joking. Um, but if you say the wrong thing on LinkedIn, you will get, you will get the wrath of LinkedIn. So I felt it a few weeks ago when I said I bought a second MacBook Air to run a second Max, uh, Claude Max subscription on a hundred thousand, uh, impressions on that post. Hundreds of comments of people telling me that was a dumb idea and I should get a virtual machine and, ah, questioning why I ever existed. But it was pretty follow. Hold on.

Speaker B: The follow up of that just before you close it out is then Jaden doubled down and then had like him with four laptops being like, now I can quadruple. Like, that's not how it works, idiot. Like, it was just amazing.

Speaker A: It was, it was beautiful. And uh, yeah, got got over almost 10,000 people visited my website from it. So I'm not complaining, but it was pretty funny. All right, guys, thanks so much for tuning into the podcast. Hope you all have an incredible rest of your day. Guys, we are pushing. We are so close to 250 reviews for the 250th anniversary of America. If you could do us a huge favor and drop a review wherever you listen to your podcast, we would be so thrilled. We'll make a banner and get a picture in front of it. Um, so if you haven't already, that would be amazing. Catch you guys all in the next episode.