DuckDuckGo courts schools with a no-AI search switch for Chromebooks

DuckDuckGo is pitching itself to schools after Google said institutions that switch off its AI would also lose Google Search. TechCrunch reported that CEO Gabriel Weinberg pointed educators to the company’s documentation on changing the default engine and added, “get in touch for help.”

What DuckDuckGo is offering administrators

The pitch rests on a deployment guide in DuckDuckGo’s help pages, written for IT administrators. It says the setup uses standard device-management policies, and that “no custom software or additional licensing is required.” It lists Intune, Jamf, Google Admin and Active Directory Group Policy as supported environments.

For Chromebooks, the guide says an admin with the Super Admin or Chrome Management Admin role in Google Workspace for Business, Education or Frontline can set DuckDuckGo as the address-bar search provider in the Google Admin console. The route is Devices, Chrome, Settings, User & Browser, then the Omnibox settings for the chosen organizational unit. A JSON configuration is an alternative, and the result can be checked at chrome://policy.

Admins choose between a forced policy, which stops users changing the engine, and a recommended one, which sets a default that users can override. The guide also says the change affects only the Chrome address bar default and does not touch Classroom, Drive or Docs.

For schools that want AI out of the picture, the guide describes pointing the default at noai.duckduckgo.com, which turns off AI-assisted answers and AI-generated images. It can be enforced by a DNS rule that covers every device on the school network, or by a search-engine policy that also works off the network. A safe.duckduckgo.com variant enforces Safe Search.

The Google decision that opened the door

On Tuesday Google said that Gemini, Gemini Notebook and Search would be off by default for K-12 schools, which could enable them individually. According to TechCrunch’s report on the announcement, schools that restrict AI entirely lose Search as well, and students see a message from their school that Search is unavailable. Chris Phillips, Google’s vice president for education, was quoted as saying, “Search and AI are deeply integrated.” The change takes effect next year, and Google says more details will follow in the coming months.

After the backlash, Google posted on X that the announcements give schools “more choice, not less.” Our earlier coverage covers the policy in detail: Google lets schools switch off AI, but only by losing Search.

DuckDuckGo’s chief public affairs officer, Kamyl Bazbaz, was sharper than his CEO, writing on X: “Forcing AI on school children: how a monopolist behaves when they think people are powerless. Prove Google wrong.” TechCrunch said DuckDuckGo also told it that Google could easily turn off Search’s AI features for schools if it wanted to. Those are DuckDuckGo’s claims; Google has not said the switch is technically simple, and its stated position is that Search and AI are integrated.

A small challenger meets a very large installed base

The scale gap is the context for this pitch. Using figures Google published in previous years, TechCrunch put the number of Chromebooks in schools at around 50 million, and Google Classroom’s reach at more than 150 million users. DuckDuckGo’s guide, by its own description, replaces only the address-bar default, so a school that took it up would still run Google’s other education services.

DuckDuckGo is not anti-AI. TechCrunch notes it runs Duck.ai, a chat interface, and an AI search assistant, but offers settings in search and its browser to turn them off. The company reported earlier this year that its app installs rose 30% as users pushed back on Google’s AI-heavy Search. That figure is the company’s own and concerns consumers, not schools.

The guide also lists privacy arguments: queries are not tied to a user profile, and it says the approach may simplify compliance under GDPR and the US student-privacy law FERPA. These are DuckDuckGo’s statements, not a legal assessment.

What the sources leave open

Neither company has said how many schools are considering a switch, and nothing published shows any district has changed its default. Google’s change is not yet in effect, and the details it promised for the coming months could change the calculation. Educators, TechCrunch notes, are still asking for tools that remove AI from learning altogether, while Google points to its Guided Learning tutor as its answer for classrooms that do use AI.

For administrators, the practical point is that the Chromebook route exists today, uses existing admin tools and is reversible by policy. Whether a no-AI search page is an adequate replacement for Google Search in classrooms is a call each school will have to make itself.