I guess it's some sort of sick performance art by showing that even though the >90% voted no AI, DDG will still have AI turned on by default in its main site and corral the >90% into the hidden away subdomain.
this post was submitted on 20 Jan 2026
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This is an obvious marketing exercise to promote their noai subdomain.
No option for "a little AI, maybe, where it makes sense, but don't go crazy with it" option, I see.
Probably because that's what they mean by "no"
Boy I miss when no meant no.
More bullshit URL slop.
Below the vote was a link to see what an internet with AI is, or something like that. I went and asked their AI if all this was just a blatant ad for their AI, and it gave me a long, long list of excuses, after which I told it: come on, just say yes or no, and it replied back: yes, it could be said to be a blatant ad :D
Judging by the votes, I don’t think it’s working that well as an ad?
Maybe the best ad is to not have AI
THIS is how you do it, looking at you Brave: requiring me to (re)type my queries in the URL bar (appending '&summary=0' to it), without having to store a cookie storing the setting...