How to avoid AI in as many places as possible

It’s not easy wanting nothing to do with AI these days.

As a tech advice journalist, I’ve heard from plenty of folks who were perfectly happy with how their apps and operating systems worked before the artificial intelligence boom. They’re not interested in AI-generated search answers, summarization buttons, and offers to help them write, yet it’s not always clear how to turn these features off.

But if you’re willing to jump through some hoops—or, perhaps, to adopt apps that haven’t jumped on the AI bandwagon—you can still wind back the clock to a mostly AI-free existence. Here’s how:

Turn off AI in Google and other search engines

While Google really wants to answer your search queries with AI, it’s quietly added a way to suppress AI answers by adding “-ai” to your searches.

Having to enter this every time isn’t ideal. But if your web browser supports custom search engines, you can set it up to automatically add “-ai” to the end of every query.

In Chrome for desktop, for instance:

• Head to Settings > Search Engines > Manage search engines and site search.
• Hit the “Add” button next to “Site search.”
• Put “Google No AI” in the Name field and “gnai” in the Shortcut field.
• In the URL field, enter the following:

https://www.google.com/search?q=%s$20-ai

Hit the ⋮ vertical ellipses next to your newly-created Site Search entry, and select “Make default” to use this version of Google every time.

Instructions for other browsers vary, but here’s a guide you can follow.

Alternatively, you can switch to a search engine whose AI settings are easier to control:

• DuckDuckGo’s “No-AI” extension for Chrome or Firefox will set DuckDuckGo as your default with AI answers disabled. You can also disable AI for DuckDuckGo’s website and mobile app via Settings > AI Features.
• Brave Search has a settings page where you can turn off the “Answer with AI” feature.
• Kagi only offers AI answers when you add a question mark to your searches, but it also has a settings page to disable them. (Bonus: There’s also a feature to downrank or hide websites suspected of having AI-generated content.)

Disable AI features in Chrome and other browsers

Chrome’s on-device AI features include writing assistance and an “Enhanced Safe Browsing” mode that monitors for potential scams, and they use about 4 GB of storage space. To disable these features, tap the ⋮ vertical dot icon in Chrome, head to Settings > System, then turn off “On-Device AI.”

You should also head to Settings > AI Innovations > History search, powered by AI, then turn the toggle to off.

Unfortunately, you’re not done. Chrome will try to steer your searches toward “AI Mode” as well, and it will occasionally show a pop-up for Google Lens as you browse the web. The only way to banish these buttons is through hidden settings:

• Enter “chrome://flags” into the address bar.
• Enter “AI Mode” into the search box.
• Use the drop-down menus for “AI Mode Omnibox entrypoint,” “AI Entrypoint Disabled on User Input,” and “Omnibox Allow AI Mode Matches” and set them to “Disabled.”
• Now, enter “Omnibox contextual” into the search box.
• Use the drop-down menus for “Omnibox contextual search on focus suggestions” and “Omnibox contextual suggestions,” and set both to “Disabled.”
• Use the “Relaunch” button to restart Chrome.

Using a different browser with unwanted AI features? Follow these instructions:

• Mozilla Firefox: Head to Settings > AI Controls, then turn on the “Block AI Enhancements” toggle.
• Microsoft Edge: Right-click the Copilot Chat icon and select “Hide Copilot.” Now, disable “Show Copilot button in toolbar” and “Copilot new tab page.” You should also head to “Browse with Copilot” and select “Strict.”
• Brave: Head to Settings > Leo and turn off “Show Leo icon” and “Show Leo in the context menu.” Then, head to “Adjust autocomplete suggestions” and uncheck “Leo AI assistant.”

You might also consider Vivaldi, which has committed to excluding AI features from its web browser.

Keep AI out of your email

If you’re not interested in having Gmail summarize your messages with AI, you can hide the option to do so, but at a cost:

• Gmail (desktop): Click the gear icon, select “See all settings,” then find and click on the “Manage Workspace smart feature settings” button. Disable the “Smart features in Google Workspace” and “Smart features in other Google products” toggles.
• Gmail (mobile): Head to Settings from the left sidebar, select your email address, then tap “Google Workspace smart features.” Disable the “Smart features in Google Workspace” and “Smart features in other Google products” toggles.

Note that turning off these settings will also disable some features that aren’t related to AI, such as having reservations from Gmail automatically appear on your calendar. There’s no way to disable Gemini features by themselves.

Turn off AI in Microsoft Office and Outlook

Don’t want Copilot getting in the way of your documents and spreadsheets? Thankfully the Microsoft 365 suite offers simple ways to turn Copilot off:

• WIndows: Head to Options > Copilot, uncheck the “Enable Copilot” box, and restart the app.
• Mac: Head to Preferences > Authoring and Proofing Tools > Copilot, uncheck the “Enable Copilot” box, and restart the app.
• Outlook: Head to Settings or Quick Settings, select Copilot from the sidebar, then disable “Turn on Copilot.”

Note that Word, Excel, PowerPoint and other Microsoft 365 apps each have separate Copilot controls, so you’ll have to disable them for each app. Sadly, these settings aren’t available at all on mobile devices.

Alternatively, you could try an office suite that doesn’t include AI to begin with, such as LibreOffice.

Avoid AI-generated music

Most music streaming services are skittish about restricting AI on their platforms, fearing that artists who use AI as a tool will get swept up with those churning out slop.

For now, that leaves Deezer as the only streaming service taking a stronger stance. While it doesn’t entirely block AI-generated songs, it bars them from appearing in algorithmic recommendations so they don’t get swept into your playlists by accident. (Deezer has also released a free tool for seeing how much AI-generated music is in your playlists on other platforms.)

Turn off Apple Intelligence

If you just want a regular iPhone without AI features crammed into every corner, you can disable Apple Intelligence. This will turn off of features like notification summaries, writing assistance, and object removal from photos. It’ll also reclaim up to 7 GB of storage space.

Just head to Settings > Apple Intelligence & Siri, then turn off Apple Intelligence. You can also turn it off on your Mac the same way.

Hide Microsoft Copilot from Windows

The easiest way to banish Copilot from Windows is to simply uninstall the app. Head to Settings > Apps > Installed Apps, search for Copilot, then hit the … icon next to it and select Uninstall.

If you use Microsoft’s Edge web browser, you can also right-click the Copilot Chat icon and select “Hide Copilot.” This will open a settings menu where you can disable “Show Copilot button in toolbar” and “Copilot new tab page.” You should also head to “Browse with Copilot” and select “Strict.”