Duck Tales: Yes AI or No AI? The thinking behind DuckDuckGo’s public AI vote (Ep.16)

Curious how people voted? Head to VoteYesOrNoAI.com

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Kamyl: Hello and welcome to DuckTales where we go behind the scenes at DuckDuckGo and discuss the stories, technology and people that help build privacy tools for everyone. In each episode you’ll hear from the employees about our product vision, product updates, engineering, approach to AI, et cetera. I’m Kamyl Bazbaz, SVP for communications and policy at DuckDuckGo. Today I’m with Mary McGee, one of our senior brand directors and I’m very excited to talk about something that we worked on together, which is our Yes AI No AI campaign that just launched. Mary, do you want to introduce yourself and then we’ll start talking about the campaign.

Mary: Yeah. Hi, Kamyl. Great intro. So good. I, like Kamyl said, I work on brand here at DuckDuckGo. I’ve been here about six years and I’ve worked on everything from our homepage to onboarding to messaging, all basically, how does it feel to use DuckDuckGo? How does it feel to use the product? What are we trying to communicate to you, our users and the types of conversations we’re looking to have? So I’m excited to talk about this one. It’s a sort of a new effort on our side, which hopefully we’ll see a lot more of.

Kamyl: That’s right. So I guess let’s let’s start from the basics. What is the no yes campaign and what are we asking people to do?

Mary: Yep. So this is our live public vote on AI and where it came from. Actually, it started probably back over the summer. So, you know, a lot of users will know that we’ve had a version of our search engine, noai.duckduckgo.com for maybe the past six months. And we built it as we were building our AI tools because something that was really important to us was that AI be optional. And that actually, comes from this sort of long history of DuckDuckGo really prioritizing user choice and wanting to let users decide how and when and how much, you know, you’ll notice that throughout all of our products. But when it came to NoAI, we noticed that there was something to this. There was, was, you know, it was getting used, people were talking about it. And it kind of sparked this conversation of like, you know, we believe optionality is, you know, inherent in good technology and letting users make that choice. But we noticed with AI, people really aren’t being given that choice. It’s like every time you see, you got a new email about a new feature or a new product, they talk about their new AI integration. And there’s no talk about how to turn it off. There’s no talk about, you were asking for it, here it is. There’s this sort of like, there’s this real gap between user demand and what companies were releasing. And so, like I mentioned, when we were thinking about AI, we were thinking about useful, private, optional, and there’s something about optional that really stuck out. So that’s where this campaign came from. What we wanted to do was actually ask, a thing that tech companies don’t often do, actually ask people, hey, where do you stand on AI? What is your take? What do you want? And we asked in really a simple way because for us, we sort of can help you either way. If you’re yes AI and you’re like looking to try AI chats or AI summaries, we can help you. We have a private version of ChatGPT. We have search summaries. That’s the yes AI experience. But if you’re no AI and you just feel like AI is being built for someone else’s vision of the future and you’re not represented in these products, we have a no AI version where we take it out and we even go further and remove AI imagery. And so really where this came from was we feel like optionality and choice matter. And so we wanted to create a public vote to help make the case that so do you, so does everyone. Like fundamentally, even if you love AI, you probably want the choice over when and how you use it. And so the idea is to get people to vote, show where they stand, explain why, and all resulting in the idea that like this should be optional. People should have the choice. And that’s what we’re hoping to find and create more of a conversation about.

Kamyl: One of my favorite things about the campaign are the updated landing pages that we made on yesai.duckduckgo.com and noai.duckduckgo.com with decks in the middle and a very clear no or yes AI. And so I’m wondering how that came together and what was the creative development around that.

Mary: Yeah, the it was actually the first thing we did like before we even decided on the vote or the billboards or anything else we’ll talk about today. It started with these pages because we fundamentally were like, this is the point. This is giving users choices is the representation of it. And so the idea was like, how can you create it a very simple experience? That’s very clear. I think there’s a version of this where you just disable the AI features or enable them and leave it at that. But we wanted these. We wanted to really reassure people about which experience they’re in and make that really clear. So that’s where, you know, just really leaning on the no and yes and the big bold, making sure you knew which experience you were in was really important. And I wouldn’t be surprised if this is something we like continue to think through and find the best way to make sure we’re like serving both sides of this conversation.

Kamyl: Yeah, I think you sort of touched on this already, but I think one of the things that I really liked about this campaign from the start is that it felt like something only DuckDuckGo could do. We pride ourselves on optionality. It’s sort of part of our legacy. You should be able to choose privacy. You should be able to choose the default search engine. That’s been a cornerstone of our advocacy for a long time. And as we know, Google, for example, doesn’t give their users an easy way to turn off AI if there’s really an option at all. And so this felt like something that DuckDuckGo had a really unique and credible position to take.

Mary: Yeah, absolutely. And I think, you know, speaking specifically of the kind of like no AI side of this, there are many people who want to opt out of these features, you know, and they are really not being given this option. We really felt like people deserve that level of choice. And it just feels like there’s this big group of people just getting ignored right now. And so some of this was both to acknowledge that and make sure they felt like they had, they could use the internet like they want and also create a conversation online and space for them because it’s nobody’s sort of mark talking to this group. You know, some are, but just not quite in this way.

Kamyl: So this, you know, people will watch this interview next week. The campaign will have concluded by then. Right now, it’s Wednesday, January 21st. We have over 85,000 votes. And if you want to talk about what the split has been or not split and sort of your reaction to that.

Mary: Yeah, so even from the beginning, it’s been pretty much like, I think since the beginning, it’s been like a 93% no AI to 7% yes AI. And it’s really maintained. Like we’ve been watching these graphs from the beginning just stay perfectly in parallel, which has been really fascinating. And I it’s really exciting. Like, you I think there’s been comments on social that’s like, is this what DuckDuckGo expected? You know, all we wanted was to create this conversation about what people want and what they expect from technology and what they’re asking for. Like, we don’t have an agenda. Like, we support optionality, which means we support creating experiences for what people want and serving them both. Really, there’s not, it’s really not about either side winning. That was never sort of the point. It was about creating a conversation about what people want and giving them this like opportunity to express it. The question is really simple, yes or no. And obviously the answers aren’t simple. You know, sometimes people are yes for some things and no for other things, but that’s what we were hoping people would talk about on social. Like take your yes and say what it meant to you. Or, you know, like I’m no, but yes in these ways. We have some creators participating as well. And that’s a lot of what they’re bringing to the conversation is like the nuance, the context, but for us, is like a, we’re really excited to see the conversations people have had. And this is just like exactly what we were hoping for is to create this like very clear stance that like what people are being provided is not what they want. And that fundamentally like from our perspective, that’s why we’re where we are promoting optionality. That’s why we believe that’s important.

Kamyl: I think it’s fascinating that we’re a company that gets to live inside of this sort of tension and conflict that, you know, we can spend so much time making noai.duckduckgo.com and have people get extremely excited about it and feel like someone is finally picking up for their point of view. While at the same time, we also have our own internal data from surveys and other research that you know, our AI assist feature, which, you know, uses AI to give, to really expand the number of instant answers, what folks on Google would call the knowledge panel answers, knowledge graph answers, expand those numbers significantly and makes the search experience better. So I think it’s so interesting that we can sort of do both, you know, use AI to improve our services and get good feedback on it and also give people the option to just not have it at all if that’s what they want.

Mary: It’s just so interesting that like, it’s that it’s revolutionary, you know, like, or that it’s so rare. Like, it feels like the most simple thing in the world to be like, here’s a new feature. If you don’t like it, you can turn it off. You know, we, you know, that’s been Gabriel’s, you know, our CEO and founders, like method from the beginning. Anytime we release something, he’ll ask, where is the off switch? You know, it’s like, how can we give that control? It’s just so strange in the era of like, all the algorithms and personalization, it’s like you used to be able to customize everything and now they’ve sort of assumed what the best experience was or taken everyone to the mean. And it’s funny to think of this as different when it so used to be the norm and we’re sort of maintaining that.

Kamyl: As this is DuckTales, and we have to go behind the curtain a little bit, one funny thing happened where noai.duckduckgo.com existed prior to this campaign. We just sort of updated it for the campaign itself. And it was discovered that we were having this vote before we even launched it this past Friday. You want to talk about that a little bit and what happens?

Mary: Yeah, well, you laid out what happened exactly. We ended up redesigning what noai.duckduckgo.com looked like, and there was a little Easter egg. Like if you hovered over the big logo, you could see a link to the vote. And so we ended up pushing that live to run some tests on what it looks like when you share on social, things like that. And it ended up getting discovered and shared on Blue Sky. Within, I think a, an hour or two, we had 10,000 votes, we had people engaging about it, lots of excitement and questions. What was really interesting about it is like, how can something like this live on its own? We had prepared social posts and Gabriel, our founder wrote a post about what this meant to us. But when you take back how we were framing it and you just brought this debate to people, which is what happened when it leaked. How do they interpret it? What do they do with it? How does it create conversation? What was really nice to see is the optionality point really did come through. I think it got, this question of yes or no, it being too simple, but understanding the different contexts as you want it and don’t. In many ways, I wouldn’t change how it happened because it was great to see it sort of embraced and like championed by the people we were trying to have the conversation for, and then it let us join the conversation actually in a funny way when we officially launched on Monday and bring it extended to other channels.

Kamyl: Yeah, I think by Monday, we basically had almost 50,000 votes with zero promotion on our part, which is not something we expected, but I think, yeah, it’s that we start the court.

Mary: Yeah, and it’s this conversation wanting to be happening or that is in many cases was already happening, but was creating like a different way of talking about it, accessing it.

Kamyl: Yeah, great. So before we wrap up our conversation here, I think we’ve covered everything. Just quick wrap-up on our questions for you, since again, we’re trying to pull back the curtain here. You’ve already said how long you worked here, six years. That’s many years in duck years. Why do you work here?

Mary: Where is this curtain? Where does the curtain exist?

Kamyl: You know, it’s private, except at the elementary, so it’s none of your business. So you already said how long you worked here, six years. That’s many years in duck years. Why do you work here?

Mary: Yeah, none of my business, none of my business, yeah, okay, yeah. I, well, it, know, this is an interesting story to share with you, Kamyl, because Kamyl and I actually worked together before DuckDuckGo and we worked at a consultancy. And so we worked with a lot of different, mainly tech clients across, you know, a lot of industries. And what I loved about DuckDuckGo was like, felt like you could be, actually we’re trying to make the internet better. Like it was a tech company that really was mission driven, but was also made, you know, researched back data decisions, you know, lot of the companies you see or products you see released are sort of, they don’t have long last, there’s not this like long lasting legacy to them. Like DuckDuckGo has been around since 2008 trying to do the same thing, you know, giving people who want more privacy a private real alternative. And as the internet changes, it’s new products, it’s AI or it’s browser or it’s app tracking protection, whatever it may be. It’s sort of stayed the course and remained that like steadfast company trying to do the right thing. And it just attracts a lot of people that are wanting to do the right thing and making it better. And that does, you just like, you know, we consult, I consulted with like dozens of companies and you just don’t. It is rarer than you think. And so that’s why I came and it’s what keeps me here is feeling like you’re still trying to make something better and that has a history of trying to make something better.

Kamyl: What’s something that surprises you about working here that people don’t know?

Mary: Hmm. I think the company is funnier than it seems sometimes. Know, I think the, obviously have a duck logo, Dax, but a lot of what you’ve seen coming from us has been a lot more about like privacy education or things like that. And so what we’re trying to do over, you know, is, what I’m really trying to do is like sort of unleash the like personality that is so real about the people that work here. Everyone is like, it’s such a good sense of humor. The company is quirky. It’s like full of people that have this sort of like quirky fun personality. And so showing that more and making that more of what your, like the user’s experience is with us. It might surprise you to hear that. And I think we’ll hopefully see a lot more of it.

Kamyl: Thank you, Mary. That was really great. So where can people go to check out this campaign before we wrap up?

Mary: Yes. Okay, you can do the link up here. I’m just kidding. You can go to voteyesornoai.com or check out any of our social feeds. We have links posted of where you can go.

Kamyl: Thank you, Mary. Thanks for everyone for tuning in and reading DuckTales. See you next time.

Mary: Thanks, see ya, bye Kamyl.

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