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Google essentially makes AI unavoidable. Whether it's search, Gmail or any of its many apps, Gemini is lurking right around the corner and there's little you can do to avoid it. Some of the AI features Google offers can be incredibly helpful, but it can be a bit much at times and you might be wondering if there was a way to disable AI completely. And the short answer is... Sort of.
Google does actually let you turn off AI features across your account, but you'll end up sacrificing some features you might want to use in the process. But if you're tired of all the AI bloat, the process is pretty straightforward.
Below, we'll show you how to reduce or disable AI on your Google account.
Turn off Google Workspace smart features
Turning off Google Workspace smart features will have an immediate impact, but it won't remove Gemini icons from the services. After all, Google needs a way for you to easily enable Gemini again -- whether intentionally or by accident.
Disabling Google Workspace smart features will strip away a lot of AI features from Gmail, Drive, Docs, Sheets and Slides. It will also take away features that you might not want to give up, too. Do you like it when Google Calendar pulls an event in directly from Gmail? That'll be gone. You'll also give up personalized search when using Google, making results less relevant to you.
If you're determined to move forward, here's how to do it:
- Sign in to your Gmail account
- Click the settings icon
- Click See all settings
Under the General tab:
- Scroll down to Google Workspace smart features section
- Click Manage Workspace smart feature settings
Click the two toggles to off for:
- Smart features in Google Workspace
- Smart features in other Google products
That's it. This small tweak in settings should substantially reduce AI in your Google account and its apps.
What about AI Overviews?
If you thought that disabling the smart features above would rid you of Google's AI Overviews, think again. There are a couple of things you can do to reduce their appearances, though.
Disable the Google Labs experiment
One way to reduce AI Overviews is to disable the experiment within Google Labs. This won't necessarily disable all AI Overviews, but it's a box that shouldn't go left unchecked.
- Go to Google while signed into your account
- Click on the Labs icon (beaker), if available
- Scroll down to AI experiments
- Click on the AI Overviews and more experiment
- Use the toggle on the right to disable the experiment
Personally, turning off this experiment made no difference when performing a search, although the feature is available in more than 200 countries, so it's anyone's guess what that toggle actually does.
Add '-ai' to your Google Search
The Google Labs experiment may reduce some AI Overviews in search, but there's still no official way to disable the feature completely. Still, one simple trick seems to have better results, and that's just adding "-ai" to the end of your search query. Generally, this will do the trick, and it works on desktop and mobile.
Read more: Customize Your Google Search Results With This New Feature
If you want something a little more involved for a bigger payoff, you can also set up a Google Search web filter. And of course, you can always use a different search engine or web browser.
