Google is making AI overviews central to its search, but an increasing number of users are seeking ways to avoid or disable this feature due to concerns about accuracy, diminished visibility for independent sites, and a preference for traditional link-based results.
This guide explains why users are opting out of AI results and explores the most effective strategies to minimize or avoid them in Google search results.
Reasons Users Are Turning Off AI Results
- Early versions of AI overviews became known for giving risky or strange advice, like telling people to eat rocks or put glue on pizza; this showed the AI sometimes can’t tell facts from jokes.
- Less visibility for original sources: AI summaries often move regular websites and trusted links lower on the page, which means creators get less direct traffic.
- Unwanted summaries: Many people prefer to see the original sources right away rather than a summary, so they see the AI part as an extra step. They don’t need personalization that compromises privacy.
- AI personalization often relies heavily on tracking and profiling, which privacy-focused users may want to avoid.
Ways To Turn Off Or Avoid AI In Google Search
Google doesn’t have a simple permanent switch to turn off AI overviews, but there are a few workarounds:
- To use the -AI query trick, type your search as usual and add “-AI” to the end (for example, “recipe for bread -AI”). This prompts Google to skip the AI summary and show regular search results instead.
- To use the web filter, search as you normally would. After results appear, look for the “Web” option (usually under “More”). Click it to show only traditional text links and remove AI summaries or other extras from the results.
- Browser extensions: You can install tools like “Hide AI Overviews” or “uBlock Origin” in Chrome to automatically hide AI-generated content.
- To create a Google web search engine that avoids AI overviews, go to Chrome settings, add a new search engine, and enter this URL: https://www.google.com/search?q=%s&udm=14. Use this as your default to show only traditional web results.
- Signing out or using Incognito mode: if you use Google while signed out or in Incognito mode, there is less tracking, which can sometimes result in fewer AI-generated summaries.
Despite the backlash, Google says AI overviews are meant to be a main feature like Knowledge Balance, and they are still rolling them out to more users.
Google’s new AI overviews greatly change how search works by instantly providing summarized answers at the top of results. While this aims to save time, it has reduced publishers’ web traffic, led to factual mistakes, and, for me, feels intrusive.
With AI products, it can be difficult to determine whether the displayed results are final versions or just tests. This has led users to explore ways to remove these overviews from search results. Although there is no official off switch, some workarounds can reduce the frequency of Google’s AI answers.
Trick Google Into Removing AI
Of all the ways to remove AI overviews from Google, this is my favorite because it’s easy and always works. Just use the not (-) operator in your search to exclude certain things. For example, if you search “who owns Facebook”, you will see an overlay.
But if you add something like hyphen AIs to your search, the AI overview disappears from the results. This doesn’t mean Google made a special switch for this. Instead, the modifier just confuses Google’s algorithm, so the AI overlay doesn’t appear. When I tested it, adding random characters like -i or -efewg worked too, and I think -ai is the most fun.
Switch Back To Web Results.
When Google launched AI overviews, it also added a new web filter for search results. This filter brings back classic results. If AI snippets bother me, I click the web filter under the search bar. If you don’t see it, click More and select it from the menu. Once you choose the web filter, the AI overview disappears from the results.
Sadly, I can’t see this as the default for all search engines, so I have to pick the tab whenever Google shows an AI result, which is almost every time now. This filter isn’t a complete fix it’s just for web links, like the image filter is for images. When you use it, you won’t see YouTube review snippets, just like you don’t see web links.
Use A Proxy Site (Or Create Your Own).
When you click the web tab, Google adds a code to the URL to show just web links. But you can do this by adding &UDM=14 to the search results URL. If that’s too much work, use the proxy site UDM14.com, which acts like a Google search bar without AI overviews. Remember, a proxy site may see your queries, so consider privacy.
If you don’t want to take that risk, you can set up your own default web search. Go to the website with instructions. Open a new Chrome or Firefox tab. Search for anything. Tap the ellipsis menu, choose Settings > Search engine, and then pick Google Web from the recently visited list. I did this on my Android phone, and it worked.
I also decided to set it up on my laptop, which works a bit. I set it up on my laptop too, though the stats are a little different. I went to Settings → Search engine → Manage search engines, then clicked Add next to Site search. Chrome asked for a name (Google Web) and a shortcut (web), but the key part was adding the base URL google: search?q=%s&udm=14 to the URL box. After that, I found Google Web in the list, clicked the three-dot icon, and chose Make default. This only gives me web links in the results and no AI overviews in sight; however, keep in mind that this also means no multimedia links. If I can’t find what I’m looking for, I can use the Videos or News tabs. I can even hit the All filter to get back to the AI-filled version of Google. If there are any results, I might be missing.
Source: I Tricked Google Into Removing AI Overviews. Here’s How I Did It
