DuckDuckGo now lets you block AI images in search

If you have tried searching for a photo of a baby peacock lately, you probably got blasted with plastic-looking AI renders instead of a real bird.

DuckDuckGo is rolling out a new toggle that lets you filter out AI-generated images directly from your search results. The privacy-first search engine built the feature after users complained that AI slop was making it nearly impossible to find real visual references.

Nuking the AI slop

Using the new filter is dead simple. Head over to the Images tab on DuckDuckGo, and you will spot a new drop-down menu labeled AI images. From there, you can easily switch between show and hide, or you can turn on the filter permanently in your search settings.

Under the hood, DuckDuckGo says the tool relies on manually curated open-source blocklists, including the popular nuclear list from uBlockOrigin and the uBlacklist Huge AI Blocklist. DuckDuckGo openly admitted this approach will not catch every single AI render out there, but it will dramatically clean up your feed. The company also teased that more granular filters are coming down the road.

Why it matters

We think this is one of the most practical quality-of-life updates search has seen in months. For researchers, designers, and anyone trying to verify what a real object actually looks like, ducking the sea of AI slop saves real time.

Tapping into open-source community blocklists is a clever, cost-effective move that sidesteps the messy problem of building an imperfect automated AI detector. The downside is that blocklists are an endless game of whack-a-mole against new spam domains. Still, giving users an explicit off switch puts pressure on giants like Google to stop pretending AI search spam is what users want.