Google is about to change dramatically. If you’re not a fan of the AI Overview feature, you’re not going to like what’s coming.
In its keynote at Google I/O 2026 this week, the company announced that it is overhauling search to take a conversational, AI-driven approach, including asking users to collaborate with an AI agent that automatically notifies users when their favorite band is on tour, for example.
“This is the biggest upgrade to our iconic search box since its debut more than 25 years ago,” said Elizabeth Reid, Google’s search organization lead.
A Google search will give you the option to use AI mode from the beginning. If you choose not to use AI mode, you may still see search results that include an AI overview. This includes a chat box for asking follow-up questions. When you open the chat box, Google starts to resemble ChatGPT more than the search engine that has permeated our lives for decades.
The announcement didn’t elicit the reaction Google had hoped for. Instead, many users see this as another example of tech companies pushing AI agents and chatbots into everything they can, making it impossible to navigate the internet without encountering a chatbot. Especially after the rocky rollout of Google’s AI brief — remember when Google told people to stare at the sun? — users don’t want new tweaks.
Regarding Google’s video announcing the search update, one commenter wrote, “This is the perfect ad to let people know it’s time to get another search engine.”
They make good points. The new Google search, which Reid describes as a “deep-throated AI search,” is sure to turn users away. Aside from generative AI, some users are fed up with Google’s overwhelming dominance. A U.S. district court ruled in 2024 that Google acted illegally to maintain its monopoly over online search.
If you are interested in alternative search engines, you are at the right place. Here are some places to start (or embrace the confusion and see where Open Web Engine goes).
key
Before I was annoyed by Google’s AI Overview, I was annoyed by ads. Advertising is non-negotiable for Google and is the source of Google Search’s revenue. But even if a search engine runs without ads, can it still make money?
That’s what Kagi is trying to achieve. For $5 a month ($10 for unlimited searches), you get access to an ad-free search engine with no AI overview.
Kagi is more than just Google without ads. Search engines also allow users to customize their search experience by filtering for specific websites and narrowing search results with “lenses.” For example, if you’re in school, you can use Kagi’s academic lens to find magazine articles about your topic rather than blog posts.
If you find Google’s AI overview useful, you can use Kagi’s AI-powered “Quick Answers” feature to summarize answers to your searches and include links to sources. But what if you don’t need these AI summaries? You don’t need to generate them.
duck duck go
Maybe you don’t want to pay to search online. That’s understandable. DuckDuckGo offers a free search engine that makes money by selling ads, but unlike Google, it doesn’t collect user data in the form of search, browsing, or purchase history. Instead, DuckDuckGo chooses the ads to serve you based on the topic of your search. So when you search for concert tickets, you may see SeatGeek ads.
Like many other search engines, DuckDuckGo has an interface reminiscent of Google, and like Google, it can display AI-generated answers to your questions in search results. But if that bothers you, you can opt out of the AI features entirely in DuckDuckGo’s settings menu.
Start page
DuckDuckGo has its own search index separate from Google, but Startpage is a proxy for Google.
This means that Startpage acts as an intermediary between users and the tech giant. When a user searches for something on the Start Page, the company strips personal data, such as the user’s IP address, from the query, sends it to Google via the cloud, and returns that information to the user. In other words, Google becomes Google without knowing who you are. The downside is, it’s still Google. At least on Startpage you can turn off the AI feature.
&udm=14
Why not make your start page simpler? The search engine &udm=14 is named after the string that is added to every search on Google.
Adding &udm=14 to your Google search will give you the same Google results, but without the AI summary. However, it is quite tedious to do it yourself every time you search. So &udm=14 will do it automatically.
The developer has also published the code on GitHub, so you can run your own version of &udm=14 if you wish.
If you’re concerned about privacy, you’ll probably choose Startpage over &udm=14, but both basically give you AI-free Google.
brave
Brave provides both a browser and a search engine. This browser is built on Chromium, the same open source base as Google Chrome, so you can use Chrome extensions within the Brave browser. So if you don’t want to use Google Chrome, but can’t function without the LastPass plugin, Brave may be the way to go.
When it comes to search, Brave allows users to apply certain third-party “goggles” (not Google!) to their searches to curate results. These include niche options such as “News from the Right,” “News from the Left,” “Technology Blog,” and “Hacker News/1k short,” which prioritizes common domains referenced on Y-Combinator’s Hacker News forums, but does not include the 1,000 most popular domains and omits more mainstream sites. Next up is “No Pinterest,” which is pretty straightforward (and funny).
And yes, Brave lets you turn AI features on and off. Google, there’s no reason you can’t do this.
ecosia
Like Brave, Ecosia also offers both a browser and a search engine, and is built on Chromium, so Chrome plugins should also work with Ecosia. As its name suggests, Ecosia’s main appeal is that it is supposed to be more environmentally friendly than other search platforms.
Ecosia makes money from advertising, but donates about 80% of its profits to tree-planting efforts around the world. Tree planting can sometimes be a red flag for greenwashing, but Ecosia works with local tree-planting communities, publishes monthly financial reports to increase transparency, and blogs about the real impact of its efforts.
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