Frustrated with Google's AI Overview in Search Results? Here’s How to Completely Disable It

Google has recently updated its search result page and now the top result in (some location and categories) consists of a new kind of answer, called AI Overview (AIO). It was previously known as Google’s Search Generative Experience. It is powered by Gemini AI and summarizes the answer you are looking for. This AI model is made to compete against other AI models like ChatGPT and Perplexity. Even with quick answers through AI, many Google users are frustrated and even angry at the AI model as it is notorious for giving wrong answers and false/spam information some of the time. For instance, some user wrote a query on Google about what to do if you are bitten by a rattlesnake. Google AI told exactly what you shouldn’t do when you are bitten by a rattlesnake.

Method 1, Via Google's Lab Built-in Turn-Off Feature

Unfortunately, this first method is not a sure-fire way to get rid of Google's AI answers. According to Google support page, disabling the “AI Overviews” feature in Search Labs won't remove all AI generated answers from Google Search, as they are integral parts of the platform, much like knowledge panels, and cannot be completely turned off.

Yet, you can minimize the appearance of those AI answers by turning them off via Search lab settings.

Frustrated with Google's AI Overview in Search Results? Here’s How to Completely Disable It

On desktop, simply visit this URL: https://labs.google.com/search/experiment/1 and press the button right next to "Turn this experiment on or off. Turning this off does not disable AI Overviews in Search outside of Labs." to minimize the appearance of those AI answers. Be sure you are logged in to your Google account before following the above instructions and ensure you are not in incognito mode.

Similarly, on mobile devices open your browser or Google app and make sure you are logged in to your Google Account, and you are in a regular tab (not incognito or private mode). At the top find the Lab icon, tap on it and you'll be redirected to a new page, now tap on "AI Overviews and more" and in the next page simply press the toggle button to off, to minimize the appearance of this feature.

How to completely Turn off AI Overviews when Searching

Method 2, Via Google Chrome Web Hack

Important Note: If you are a frequent user of "search image with Google" the famous right click option for PC users on desktop for reverse image searching, then turning on this 2nd method will hide the quick searching of "search image with Google", so if you are going to enable this 2nd feature you might need to bear this in mind that it comes with it cost of sacrificing "search image with Google" feature.

Many users are asking for ways to remove Google AI from their search results. Yes, it is possible to remove Google AI from your search results. If you go to Google and search something, you will see that Google has added a new “Web” tab among other tabs like News, Images and Videos. When you click on it, it will show you all the web results and no AI results. However, it is kind of hard to separately go to the web tab when you are in a hurry to search something on Google. You cannot set the “web” page by default on Google yet but there is another way too. It is a little tricky but it works.

The method to only have web results is by changing the URL to udm=14. Simply set your browser's default search engine (by following the instructions below) or bookmark this URL: "https://www.google.com/search?q=%s&udm=14" for AI-free Google search. You can change this by going to the settings on Google Chrome.

Open Google Chrome and click on three dots at the top right corner of the screen to go to the settings.

You will see a “Search Engine” section. Under the Search Engine section, click on “Manage Search Engines and Site Search”.

After you scroll down a little, you will see an “Add” button next to Site Search that you will have to click on.

A dialogue box will appear. You will have to fill the dialogue box like this: Write the Search Engine Name (e.g. Google Custom Search) and for the Shortcut, enter a keyword (e.g. Web). In the URL section, change the URL to:
{google:baseURL}search?udm=14&q=%s 
and click Add.

You will create a search engine by using this URL. Next to this search engine, you will see three dots. Click those dots to open Menu and select “Make Default”. You'll be able to see your custom created search engine in the search engine settings.







Now, this new search engine will appear as a web page when you search on Google for something.
If you want to go back to default Google settings, head to the settings on Google Chrome and remove the URL and set Google as default search engine. There is also a Google Chrome extension called “Hide AI Overviews” that hides all the AI answers on the web page. But it is only available for Windows. If you want to do it on mobile, first install Firefox and then change its settings.

Update: This post has been update on 29th May to add another method.

Read next: Tired Of Google's Sign-in Prompts On Every Website? Here's A Quick Guide To Turning Them Off In Chrome
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