Tech leaders debate whether CEOs suffer from 'AI psychosis,' as users flee to AI-skeptical search engines

Box founder Aaron Levie sparked discussion by suggesting tech CEOs are 'uniquely prone to AI psychosis' because they are distant from the actual work required to generate value with AI tools.

DuckDuckGo reported installs are up 30% after Google announced it is bringing more AI to search; the alternative search engine is now positioning itself as explicitly anti-AI, a shift from a year ago when competitors were still experimenting with AI features.

Google faces tension between pursuing AI-integrated search (emphasizing commercial transactions like flight bookings) and protecting its core identity as an information retrieval system that users have relied on for decades, with some users reporting frustration over basic errors in AI-generated responses.