I recently noticed Google starting to show AI-generated answers and suggestions in my searches and some apps, and it’s making things confusing for me. I’d rather just see the regular, non-AI results and classic interface. Can someone walk me through how to fully disable or opt out of any AI mode or AI overview features across Google, if that’s even possible?
Short answer. You cannot fully turn off all AI in Google products, but you can shut off most of the obvious AI stuff and reduce it a lot.
Here is what you do on the main places.
- Google Search on desktop
AI Overviews and weird summaries in results
Right now Google does not give a clean master off switch. You need workarounds.
• Use a different search URL:
Try Google
That version shows classic style results with less AI junk. Bookmark it and use that as your main Google link.
• Turn off “Search Generative Experience” if you see it:
- Go to https://searchlabs.google.com
- Sign in.
- Turn off “AI Overviews” or “Search Generative Experience” or anything similar.
Not everyone has that toggle, depends on country and account.
- Google Search app on Android / iOS
• Open the Google app.
• Tap your profile picture top right.
• Tap “Search settings”.
Look for “AI Overviews”, “Search Labs”, “Search Generative Experience” or “Labs” banner. Turn them off.
Not all regions show the same text, so you might need to poke around a bit.
Also in the Google app
• Profile picture.
• “Settings”.
• Check “General” and turn off:
– “Autocomplete with trending searches”.
– “Discover” or “Personalized feed”.
These do not kill AI, but they remove a lot of extra suggestions and noise.
- Chrome browser “Help me write” and other AI stuff
On desktop Chrome
• Go to chrome://settings
• Click “Experimental AI” or “AI features” if it appears.
• Turn off any “Help me write”, “AI features in Chrome”, or “Generative” options.
If you have the side panel with “Search this page with AI”
• Right click the toolbar or use the three dots.
• Hide or disable that panel option.
On mobile Chrome
• Three dots.
• Settings.
• Look under “Google services” and switch off “Enhanced AI search features” or anything similar if it exists in your region.
- Gmail AI features
You cannot fully remove the backend AI, but you can hide the obvious stuff.
Smart Compose
• Open Gmail in a browser.
• Gear icon top right.
• “See all settings”.
• Tab “General”.
• Find “Smart Compose”. Turn it off.
• Also turn off “Smart Reply” if you do not want suggested replies.
Gmail mobile app
• Tap the menu (three lines).
• Settings.
• Choose your account.
• Turn off:
– Smart Compose.
– Smart Reply.
– Smart features and personalization if present.
- Google Docs, Sheets, Slides “Help me write” or “Help me organize”
In the web apps
• Click “Tools” or “Extensions” or “Settings” depending on where the options show up.
• Turn off “Help me write” panels or “Labs” options.
If Gemini buttons appear, ignore them or disable add-ons tied to them.
Also check the general Google Account settings:
• Go to https://myaccount.google.com
• Go to “Data & privacy”.
• Scroll to “Personalized ads”, “General personalization”, “Web & App Activity”.
Turn off ad personalization and as much activity tracking as you feel ok with. This will not kill AI, but it reduces personalization so the AI outputs feel less targeted and you see more generic stuff.
-
Google Assistant and Gemini
If your phone started pushing Gemini replies instead of plain Assistant:
• Long press home button or trigger Assistant.
• Tap your profile.
• Settings.
Here, options change fast, but look for anything like “Gemini”, “AI features”, or “Upgrade to Gemini”. Turn off or skip any upgrade. If your device already switched to Gemini and allows rolling back, the option sits in the same menu. -
Harder option
Use more “classic” alternatives for the tasks you care about:
• Search: DuckDuckGo, Brave Search, Kagi.
• Maps: still mostly ok, but you can turn off “personalized” suggestions in account settings.
• YouTube: turn off “Autoplay” and reduce watch history personalization.
You will not get a 100 percent AI free Google experience now. Google bakes AI into ranking, spam filtering, translations, etc. Most of that runs in the background and has no visible switch.
You can do three main things though.
- Turn off optional AI features and “Labs” where you see them.
- Use special URLs like the UDM 14 one for plain search results.
- Cut down personalization in your Google Account and Gmail.
That combo keeps most of the loud AI stuff out of your way so your screen looks closer to the old, simple Google.
Short version: “completely” off isn’t possible right now, but you can (a) fence it in and (b) dodge it. @espritlibre already hit most of the direct toggles, so I’ll focus on other angles and a few places where I don’t totally agree.
- Stop using the AI entry points
Google’s quietly pushing people into AI by changing the entry point more than the settings. If you’re clicking:
- The big “Gemini” button on Android
- The “Chat” / “Ask with AI” bubbles in search
- The colorful star icons in Docs / Gmail
…then you’re basically telling it “yes, AI pls.” Easiest fix: train yourself to ignore all of that and only use:
- Plain search box in browser
- Classic address bar search (no Side panel)
- Regular typing in Docs / Gmail with no “Help me write” buttons
Not a real “setting,” but behavior matters more than Google admits.
- Browser-level blocking
If you’re serious about not even seeing AI blocks:
- Use an ad / content blocker (uBlock Origin, etc.).
- Create cosmetic filters to hide AI elements like:
- Panels with “AI Overview” headers
- “Ask this page with AI” sidebars
- Gemini/chat buttons in Docs/Gmail
This is more technical, but it solves something settings can’t: Google keeps renaming and reshuffling the toggles. CSS/element blocking just nukes whatever appears.
- Try non Google surfaces first
I partly disagree with relying only on that special UDM search URL. It works, until Google silently changes the behavior again. More stable strategy:
- Set your browser’s default search engine to something else:
- DuckDuckGo, Brave Search, Kagi, Startpage, etc.
- Keep Google as a “backup” only when you really need it, via bookmark.
That way, 80–90% of the time you never even touch Google’s AI stack, regardless of what they do with settings.
- Hardcore “classic web” mode using extensions
If you’re on desktop and a bit nerdy:
- Use extensions that strip or reformat result pages (e.g., “Search result cleaner” types).
- Some community scripts literally remove:
- Knowledge panels
- AI summaries
- Infinite scroll stuff
Leaving you with basically blue links and snippets. It’s not perfect, but it feels much closer to 2010 Google.
- Account separation
If you cannot avoid Google completely:
- Make a “dumb” account with:
- Web & App Activity off
- Personalized recommendations off
- Ad personalization off
- Use that account for search / maps.
- Keep your main account just for Gmail / Docs, with AI features disabled like @espritlibre described.
The reason: when your history/personalization is low, even the AI that you can’t turn off tends to be more generic and less creepy.
- Mobile launchers & widgets
On Android, a lot of AI creep is from:
- Google Discover feed
- Gemini/Assistant suggestions
- Search bar widget morphing into an AI front-end
You can:
- Use a different launcher (Nova, Niagara, etc.) with a non Google search bar.
- Remove Google widgets from the home screen.
- Disable the Discover feed by long pressing the home screen and turning it off where your launcher lets you.
It’s not about settings inside Google, it’s about not surfacing their AI “entry doors” in the first place.
- Adjust expectations a bit
This is the annoying truth:
- Ranking, spam detection, autocomplete, translations, etc. are all ML/AI now.
- There is no way to get a fully non AI Google in 2024, because a lot runs server-side with no toggle and no transparency.
So the realistic goal is:
- Remove visible AI panels, summaries, and “help me” junk.
- Minimize personalization and history.
- Use alternatives for anything where Google pushes you into AI by default.
If you want something that feels like “old web” for serious searching, Kagi / Brave / DuckDuckGo + a classic style extension in your browser is often less painful than trying to out-click every new Gemini popup Google invents next month.
TL;DR: You’re not going crazy, they really are shoving AI in every crack. You can’t fully kill it, but you can mostly starve it of attention, screen space, and data so your day-to-day experience feels a lot closer to the old, non AI Google.