This guide shows you how to turn off or reduce AI features in Google, such as Gemini and AI Overview, for a cleaner search experience.
Google's AI is appearing almost everywhere: from search results to Gmail and Google Drive. While some features can save time, chatbots like Gemini constantly interrupting the experience can sometimes be annoying, especially when you just want to get things done quickly.
The problem is that Google doesn't provide a 'turn off all AI' button. If you want to revert to a cleaner experience, you'll have to adjust each part of the settings individually. And the trade-off here is: the more AI you turn off, the more smart features you're used to losing.
Here's how to minimize the presence of AI in your Google account.
Turn off Google Workspace's smart features.
The first thing you should do is turn off the 'smart features' in Google Workspace. These are AI features that directly affect Gmail, Docs, Sheets, Drive, and many other services.
After turning it off, you'll see fewer AI suggestions, less automation, and a generally cleaner experience. However, some features will disappear. For example, Google Calendar will no longer automatically retrieve event information from emails, and search results will be less personalized.
To do this, log in to Gmail, open Settings, and select 'View all settings'. In the General tab, scroll down to Google Workspace smart features, then go to the management section and turn off both options related to smart features in Workspace and other Google products.
With this change alone, the amount of AI within the Google ecosystem will decrease significantly.
AI Overviews
Even if you turn off those features, you will still see AI Overviews in search results. This is an AI-generated summary, and there is currently no official way to completely disable it.
However, there are still some ways to help limit its occurrence.
Turn off AI testing in Google Labs.
One simple way is to check the Google Labs section. This is where Google tests new features, including AI Overviews.
Simply log in to your Google account, go to the search page, click the Labs icon (the test tube), find the AI Overviews section, and close it.
However, the effectiveness of this approach is not always clear. In many cases, AI Overviews still appear because they have become a default feature in many countries.
Add '-ai' to the search query.
A simple but quite effective trick is to add '-ai' to the end of your search query.
For example, instead of searching for 'best laptops 2026', you could type 'best laptops 2026 -ai'. This often helps to remove the AI Overviews section from the results.
The advantage is that it can be used on both computers and phones, and no additional installation is required.
Other alternatives
If you want more complete control, you can set up your own search filters or switch to a different search engine. This is the only way to completely avoid the AI features that Google is increasingly integrating into its system.
AI is gradually becoming the default in the Google experience, and 'escaping' it is no longer as simple as it used to be.
Users can still reduce the presence of AI by adjusting settings and changing search methods. However, this always comes with a trade-off between a minimalist experience and smart features.
Therefore, the final choice isn't 'to turn it off or not to turn it off,' but rather finding the right balance based on how you use Google each day.
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