Frustration Grows Over Google’s AI Overviews Feature: How to Disable

Since Google enabled its AI-powered search feature, many people have tried unsuccessfully to disable the often incorrect AI Overviews in search results. Unfortunately, you can’t turn it off directly. However, you can use a new “Web” search mode to avoid it. Here’s how.

AI Overviews, also known as “Search Generative Experience,” is Google’s feature that summarizes web content using large language models (LLMs). Google claims these overviews appear only when they add more value than traditional blue links.

While this feature sounds useful, it has several issues, including delays in generating answers and sometimes displaying incorrect information. For instance, Google AI Overviews once advised people to drink two quarts of urine to pass kidney stones quickly.

Initially an opt-in experiment, Google has now rolled out AI Overviews to all users in the U.S., with other countries to follow. Despite Google’s claim that people find the feature useful, many users are unhappy and want to disable it.

Users have posted negative feedback on Google forums, stating that the results are often wrong, repetitive, and not relevant. Unfortunately, there’s no direct way to turn off AI Overviews now, and Google has locked support threads on this topic.

However, Google has introduced a new “Web” search option to return to a more traditional search experience, free of features like “Top Stories,” “AI Overviews,” and shopping listings.

How to Remove Google AI Overviews

To avoid AI Overviews, you can force Google to show only Web search results without AI summaries, videos, images, and other features. Follow these steps:

1. Open Google Chrome, click the three-dot menu in the top-right corner, and select Settings.
2. Scroll down to the Search engine section and click Manage search engines and site search.
3. Click Add next to Site search.
4. In the Add search engine dialog, enter a name for your search engine (e.g., “Google Web”). For a shortcut, enter a keyword to quickly use this search engine from the address bar (e.g., “Web”).
5. Change the URL to{google:baseURL}/search?udm=14&q=%s.
6. Click Add.
7. Click the three-dot menu next to the new search engine you created and select Make Default.
8. The new search engine will now appear as the default under Search Engines.
9. Close the Settings page.

Now, when you search from the address bar in Google Chrome, it will use Google’s new Web search feature. To switch back, go into the search settings and set Google as the default search engine again.

For a simpler solution, you can install a Google Chrome extension called “Hide AI Overviews” from the Chrome Web Store, which hides the generative search overviews without changing settings manually.

On mobile devices, you need to install Firefox and change its search engine settings to use the above entry point.