Search Engines Without AI: 6 Options in 2026
Search engines without AI are engines, or settings on familiar engines, that show a plain list of links with no generated answer on top. There is no switch that removes AI from Google, but its Web filter and the udm=14 URL trick come close. DuckDuckGo has a dedicated No-AI version, and independent engines such as Mojeek and Kagi let you turn their summaries off. Every option below was checked against the engine’s own help pages on September 22, 2026.
This page is for two readers. If you just want links back, the first half tells you how. If you run a website, the second half covers what this demand means for your traffic and which controls you actually have.
On this page
- Why people look for search engines without AI
- Can you turn off AI Overviews in Google?
- DuckDuckGo No-AI and Search Assist settings
- Independent engines: Mojeek, Kagi and Brave
- Which option fits which searcher?
- What this demand means for publishers
- Search engines without AI and your SEO plan
Why people look for search engines without AI
People look for search engines without AI because they want links, not a summary that might be wrong, and the demand is measurable. Google’s own help page says AI responses “may include mistakes” and asks users to check important information in more than one place. Some people would rather skip that step. And the summaries are now hard to avoid: a Pew Research Center study found one on 18% of the Google searches it tracked in March 2025, and Google said at I/O 2026 that AI Overviews had over 2.5 billion monthly active users.
Search volume shows how many. The chart below uses Google Ads data pulled through DataForSEO for the US on September 22, 2026.
Scroll the diagram sideways to see all of it.
The biggest queries are about Google specifically. Most people are not trying to leave Google; they want Google without the AI box. The fastest-growing one is DuckDuckGo’s No-AI version, which went from 90 searches in September 2025 to 5,400 in August 2026.
The monthly pattern is uneven rather than a steady climb. “Search engines without ai” sat between 1,000 and 1,900 searches most months, then jumped to 3,600 in both May and June 2026 before settling back to 1,900 in August. “duckduckgo no ai” peaked at 9,900 in June 2026. Volume data alone cannot say what caused those spikes, so treat the averages as a floor of steady interest with occasional bursts on top.
Can you turn off AI Overviews in Google?
No. Google’s help center says AI Overviews “are a core Google Search feature, like knowledge panels” and that “features cannot be turned off.” It then offers the workaround: select the Web filter after you search, which “displays only text-based links without features like AI Overviews.”
Google launched that filter in May 2024. Google’s Search Liaison account said, as quoted by TechCrunch at the launch, that it was added for people who “prefer to just see links to web pages,” such as when looking for longer documents or on a slow connection.
The catch is that Google gives you no setting to make Web the default. The workaround is a URL parameter. As Ars Technica documented, adding &udm=14 to a Google search URL opens the Web filter directly. To make it permanent:
- Open your browser’s search engine settings.
- Add a new search engine called “Google Web”.
- Use
https://www.google.com/search?q=%s&udm=14as the URL. - Set it as the default.
Two honest notes. The parameter is not described in the Google help pages we checked, so it could change without notice. And proxy sites that add the parameter for you can read your queries, as Ars points out, so the browser setting is the safer route.
DuckDuckGo No-AI and Search Assist settings
DuckDuckGo is the easiest full opt-out, because it offers a separate address with every AI feature switched off. Its help page on noai.duckduckgo.com lists what is blocked there:
- Search Assist, its AI-generated answers
- Duck.ai, its chat
- AI-generated images, filtered out of image results
DuckDuckGo also publishes No-AI browser extensions for Chrome and Firefox that set this version as your default, and says the address “will remain a way to search privately on DuckDuckGo without AI” if new AI features arrive.
If you like the regular DuckDuckGo but want fewer AI answers, change the frequency instead. According to its Search Assist help page, the choices are often, sometimes (the default), on-demand, or never. Search Assist answers link to one or two sources when they do appear.
Independent engines: Mojeek, Kagi and Brave
Independent engines are worth a look because they run their own index, and two of them let you keep summaries off. None of them is AI-free in the strict sense, and it pays to know which is which.
Mojeek is often recommended as the no-AI engine, and it does run its own crawler and index: the company says it passed 9 billion pages in 2025. But it added optional summaries in April 2024. Its announcement describes a retrieval-augmented setup using the Mixtral model, with citations linking back to results, and says “you can choose to turn these summaries on or off.”
Kagi has Quick Answer, which summarizes results with references. Per its help page, it triggers automatically when a query ends with a question mark, and you can disable Auto Quick Answer in the Search AI settings. With it off, a summary appears only when you ask for one, by selecting Quick Answer or pressing q after the results load.
Brave says it serves results from its own, built-from-scratch index. It is not a no-AI engine: AI answers through Ask Brave sit on the same results page. We did not find an off switch documented on that page, so check Brave’s settings yourself before relying on it.
The matrix below summarizes what each engine documents.
Scroll the diagram sideways to see all of it.
Which option fits which searcher?
The right choice depends on whether you want to keep Google’s results or leave Google altogether. This table maps the common goals to the least effort that achieves them.
| If you want | Use | Effort | Keeps Google’s results? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Google, minus the AI box, once | Web filter after searching | None | Yes |
| Google, minus the AI box, always | Custom search engine with udm=14 | Five minutes | Yes |
| A private engine with zero AI features | noai.duckduckgo.com or its extension | One click | No |
| DuckDuckGo, with AI only when asked | Search Assist set to on-demand | One setting | No |
| An independent index | Mojeek with summaries off | One setting | No |
| Summaries only when you ask | Kagi with Auto Quick Answer off | One setting | No |
A small point that trips people up: turning off generated answers does not remove machine learning from ranking. Every engine on this list ranks with algorithms. What you are avoiding is the model that writes the answer.
What this demand means for publishers
For a website owner, the no-AI crowd is a reminder that classic rankings still carry real traffic. Someone on the Web filter or DuckDuckGo No-AI sees ten links and clicks one, so position still decides who gets the visit. The gap in clicks is measurable. Pew found users clicked a traditional result on 8% of visits with an AI summary and 15% without, and clicked a link inside the summary on 1% of visits. Ahrefs found AI Overviews reduced clicks to top-ranking pages by 34.5%, comparing click-through rates from March 2024 and March 2025. The broader traffic effect of AI answers is covered in AI Overviews and zero-click search.
It also explains a measurement blind spot. Google says clicks from AI Overviews and AI Mode are counted inside Search Console’s Performance report under the “Web” search type, alongside ordinary blue-link clicks, so you cannot separate a visitor who used the Web filter from one who clicked a link inside an AI Overview. Google also claims that clicks from results pages with AI Overviews are “higher quality,” meaning visitors spend more time on the site. That is Google’s own finding, not an independent one, so treat it as a claim to test in your analytics rather than a fact to plan around. Practical workarounds for splitting the data are in tracking AI traffic in GA4 and Search Console.
Finally, the demand itself is content. Queries like “how to turn off ai overview” are informational searches with real volume, and a clear, accurate how-to page is exactly the kind of result both groups of searchers click.
On the control side, the options are narrower than most people assume. Google’s AI features guide for site owners is explicit: robots.txt for Googlebot controls crawling for Search, and nosnippet, data-nosnippet, max-snippet or noindex limit what is shown. The decision tree below lays out the main levers.
Scroll the diagram sideways to see all of it.
Two points deserve emphasis. Google’s common crawlers list says Google-Extended “does not impact a site’s inclusion in Google Search nor is it used as a ranking signal,” so it will not remove you from AI Overviews. And OpenAI’s bots page says sites that opt out of OAI-SearchBot “will not be shown in ChatGPT search answers.” Every one of these levers costs visibility somewhere. Our view on when that trade is worth it is in should you block AI crawlers, and the syntax is in robots.txt for AI crawlers.
Search engines without AI and your SEO plan
Search engines without AI do not change the plan much; they confirm it has two halves. One half is classic: rank well in Google and Bing, because the Web filter and DuckDuckGo users still choose from a list of links, and Brave’s comparison page states that DuckDuckGo depends on the Bing index. Our Bing SEO guide covers that side.
The other half is AI visibility, because most searchers never touch these settings. They meet brands inside AI Overviews, AI Mode and chat answers, which work as described in how AI search engines find sources. The businesses that do well treat both as one job: pages that rank as links and read cleanly as quoted answers.
To see where your site stands on both, our GEO service checks classic rankings and AI citations side by side, so you know which half needs the work.
Frequently asked questions
How do I turn off AI Overviews in Google?
You can't switch them off in settings. Google's help center says AI Overviews are a core Search feature and features cannot be turned off. What you can do is select the Web filter after a search, which shows only text-based links, or add udm=14 to the search URL to land on that filter directly.
Does DuckDuckGo use AI?
It offers optional AI features: Search Assist answers and the Duck.ai chat. You can set Search Assist to never in search settings, or search from noai.duckduckgo.com, which turns off Search Assist, Duck.ai and AI-generated images by default. DuckDuckGo says noai.duckduckgo.com will remain AI-free if it adds new AI features.
Is there a search engine with no AI at all?
Not in the strict sense. Every modern engine uses machine learning to rank results. What you can avoid is generated answers: DuckDuckGo's No-AI version and Google's Web filter show links only, and Mojeek, which runs its own index, offers summaries only as an option you can turn off.
How do I get Google search results without AI?
Run your search, then choose Web from the filters row or the More menu. To make it permanent, add a custom search engine in your browser with the URL https://www.google.com/search?q=%s&udm=14 and set it as the default.
Is DuckDuckGo safer than Google?
For privacy, DuckDuckGo says it searches privately by default, and its AI chat is anonymized and stored locally on your device according to its help pages. Safety in the sense of result quality is harder to call. Brave, for example, states that DuckDuckGo depends on the Bing index for results.
Should my business worry about people avoiding AI search?
It is a reason to keep classic SEO strong, not to ignore AI search. People who filter out AI answers still click blue links, so rankings still matter to them, while everyone else may meet your brand inside an AI answer first.