How do I completely turn off AI features in Google services?

General
1

I’ve started noticing more AI-generated results and suggestions across different Google services (like Search and maybe Gmail/Maps), and it’s getting distracting and sometimes inaccurate for what I need. I’ve tried digging through the settings, but I’m not sure which options actually disable the AI parts versus just hiding some of the suggestions. Can someone explain, step by step, how to fully turn off or limit Google’s AI features wherever possible, and which settings I should check on desktop and mobile for the main Google apps?

2

Short answer. You cannot fully turn it all off across Google. You can only reduce it a lot in each service.

Here is what you can do that has real effect.

  1. Google Search

A) Turn off Search Generative Experience (if you have it)

  1. Go to https://searchlabs.google.com
  2. Sign in with the same account you use in Search
  3. Look for “AI Overviews and more” or “SGE”
  4. Toggle it off

B) Turn off “Web and app activity” personalization

  1. Go to https://myactivity.google.com/activitycontrols
  2. Turn off:
    • Web & App Activity
    • Include Chrome history and activity
    • Include audio recordings
      This reduces how much your data trains their models and affects suggestions.

C) Turn off search personalization

  1. Go to Zoekinstellingen
  2. Turn off:
    • Where available, show personal results
    • Autocomplete with trending searches (if you hate those)
  3. Save

D) Use the “Web” filter on Search
At the top of results, click “Web”. It strips most AI stuff and gives you simple links.
You have to set it each time, there is no global lock yet.

  1. Google “AI Overviews” in results

If you still see them:

  • Install a browser extension that hides AI Overviews
    Example searches: “Hide Google AI Overviews extension”
  • Or use a different search engine for serious work:
    • DuckDuckGo
    • Kagi
    • Brave Search
  1. Gmail

A) Turn off “Smart features”

  1. In Gmail, click the gear icon
  2. Click “See all settings”
  3. Go to the “General” tab
  4. Disable:
    • Smart Compose
    • Smart Reply
    • Nudges (optional)
  5. Scroll down and save

B) Turn off “Smart features and personalization” globally

  1. In Gmail, go to Settings again
  2. Under “Smart features and personalization”
    • Turn off “Smart features and personalization in Gmail, Chat and Meet”
    • Turn off “Smart features and personalization in other Google products”
      This kills a lot of AI based email suggestions and summary stuff.
  1. Google Maps

A) Reduce personalization and suggestions

  1. Open Maps
  2. Tap your profile picture
  3. Go to “Your data in Maps”
  4. Turn off:
    • Web & App Activity (or at least location history within it)
    • Location History
  5. Under “Personal content”
    • Disable “Personalized recommendations”
    • Disable “Personalized ads” links that show up

B) Tweak the Explore tab
You cannot fully remove “AI suggested” places, but you reduce how targeted it is by having history and personalization off.

  1. YouTube

A) Turn off watch history

  1. Go to https://myactivity.google.com/activitycontrols
  2. Turn off YouTube History
    Then the recommendation AI gets much dumber, and home feed becomes more generic.

B) Remove “Autoplay” and some suggestions

  1. In the YouTube app or web, turn off Autoplay
  2. Use the three dot menu on videos and choose “Not interested”
    This is slow but it trains the system away from junk.
  1. Ads and personalization

A) Turn off ad personalization

  1. Go to https://myadcenter.google.com
  2. Turn off “Ad personalization”
    This still gives you ads, but less behavior driven AI targeting.
  1. General account settings

A) Go through “My Account”

  1. https://myaccount.google.com
  2. Check:
    • Data & privacy
    • Personalization
      Turn off anything tied to “personal results” or “customized experience”.
  1. Hardline options

If you want almost no AI flavor at all:

  • Use a different search engine as default
  • Use a different email client and keep Gmail as a backend only
  • Use a privacy browser with strict extensions
  • Use browser extensions to block AI sections in pages

The annoying part. Google treats most of this as “experiments” or “features”, so there is no single master “No AI” switch. You have to hit each product.

If you say what you use most, Search vs Gmail vs Maps, people here can share more exact click paths. Some UIs look a bit different by region and account type, so it is slightly messy and frankly kinda user-hostile.

3

You’re not crazy, it is spreading everywhere, and no, there is still no magical “Kill AI” button in Googleland.

@stellacadente already hit most of the obvious toggles, so I’ll skip repeating all the same click-paths and add a few angles they didn’t lean on.

1. Use account separation as your “AI firewall”

If you’re willing to be a bit hardcore about it, this works better than any single setting:

  • Make a second Google account that you never use for:
    • personalization
    • history
    • “smart” features
  • Log that account into Chrome for “serious” work:
    • Disable sync or keep it minimal
    • Kill Web & App Activity there, etc.
  • Keep your messy, personalized, AI-happy account on your phone / secondary browser.

Result: for most Google surfaces, the “clean” account gets fewer experiments, less aggressive personalization, and often fewer AI experiments. It’s not perfect, but for me it made Search and YouTube look way more old‑school.

2. Use browser-level blocking, not just Google settings

Settings are nice, but Google flips things on, rebrands them, moves them. Your browser does not care what marketing name they invent.

  • Use a good content blocker (uBlock Origin, etc.).
  • Add custom cosmetic rules to nuke AI blocks in Search:
    • People share filter lists specifically for:
      • AI Overviews
      • “Search Generative Experience” blocks
      • “Help me write” style widgets
  • Benefit: when Google renames “AI Overviews” yet again, you can just update rules instead of hunting some new toggle buried 4 menus deep.

Same logic for YouTube: SponsorBlock style extensions + custom filters can hide “AI”-labeled features if/when they ship more of that.

3. Change your entry points into Google

If you really want minimal AI stuff:

  • Use a different search engine as your default, and only:
    • site:google.com when you need Google results
    • Or manually open Google in a generic profile when absolutely necessary
  • Use a non-Google email client (Thunderbird, Outlook, Apple Mail) with IMAP access to Gmail:
    • If you barely open the Gmail web UI, you barely see Google’s writing helpers and “magic” stuff.

You’ll still have a Gmail account, but you’re not forced to stare at its AI frosting.

4. Opt out where possible of “experiments” & “Labs”

Besides Search Labs:

  • In individual products, look for:
    • “Labs”
    • “Try new features”
    • “Experiments”
    • “Help me write” / “Help me organize” betas
  • Any toggle or banner suggesting “early access” or “experimental AI stuff” = turn it off, decline, or stop clicking “Try it.”

A lot of AI junk sneaks in under the “labs/experiment” umbrella, and people forget they opted in once.

5. Hit privacy and permissions from the OS side

If you’re on Android:

  • In system settings:
    • Limit Google app permissions (location, microphone, notifications).
    • Turn off “Device personalization services” where possible.
  • Turn off “Hey Google” hotword and audio history:
    • That reduces some of the “contextual” AI interaction layer.

Again, this will not kill everything, but it pushes in the “less context, less personalization, less AI meddling” direction.

6. Accept that “completely off” basically means “stop using Google for X”

This is the part where I slightly disagree with the vibe that you can just “reduce it a lot” and be happy. If your bar is literally “completely turn off AI features”, then:

  • For search: you’ll need to mostly stop using Google Search as your general engine.
  • For mail: you’ll need to use a client that doesn’t expose Gmail’s AI tools.
  • For maps: you’ll have to tolerate some suggestion logic or move to an alternative (OpenStreetMap-based apps, Apple Maps, etc.) where that bothers you less.

Google is structurally built around ML/AI now. Their old-school, static, non‑predictive experience is not coming back. You can blunt it, hide it, or route around it, but not fully disable it on their turf.

7. Very practical combo that works decently

If you want something you can actually maintain without losing your mind:

  • One “clean” Google account with all the history/personalization toggles off.
  • Privacy‑focused browser profile with:
    • uBlock Origin + filters to hide AI sections in Search.
    • Different default search (DuckDuckGo, Kagi, Brave Search, whatever).
  • Non‑Google mail client for Gmail.
  • Use Maps and YouTube logged out or in a stripped‑down account, histories off.

You’ll still see some AI edges here and there, but the loud, in‑your‑face stuff mostly disappears, and you don’t have to play whack‑a‑mole with every new minor feature they ship.

4

Short version: there is no “Kill AI” master switch in Google, and @stellacadente already covered the defensive settings and browser tricks really well. I’ll focus on different levers: protocol-level choices, network-side blocking, and some mindset tradeoffs.

1. Stop feeding Google the signal it needs for aggressive AI

Even if you keep using Google products, you can intentionally starve them of the feedback loops that make AI features more prominent:

  • Never click AI answers when they appear in Search
  • Avoid “thumbs up / thumbs down” on AI snippets
  • Do not use “Help me write / summarize / draft” features at all
  • When an AI box is irrelevant or wrong, scroll past it and click a normal blue link instead

Google tracks engagement. If a particular usage pattern never touches AI surfaces, that pattern is less likely to get more AI shoved in its face over time. This is not instant and not guaranteed, but it does push in the right direction.

I slightly disagree with the idea that account separation alone is enough; behavior-based signals matter just as much as which account you use.

2. Use DNS- and network-level blocking where possible

Instead of only using browser extensions, you can move the “no AI” logic one step earlier: your network.

On a home network:

  • Use a configurable DNS resolver (like a Pi-hole or router-level blocker)
  • Add block rules for specific Google experiment / labs subdomains if you can identify them
  • Combine this with per-device profiles so your “serious work” machine has the most aggressive blocking

Pros:

  • Independent of browser, works for all clients on that network
  • Harder for a random UI change to bypass

Cons:

  • Requires technical effort and some trial and error
  • Overblocking can break unrelated features until you tune it

This will not erase AI from Gmail or Search, but it can blunt some of the separate experiment surfaces that spin up under distinct hosts.

3. Lean on non-Google frontends and protocols

For services you cannot easily replace, try changing how you access them:

  • Gmail:

    • Use standard IMAP/SMTP through a desktop or mobile client.
    • The protocol does not carry the AI UI, so the fancy completion toys never even render.
    • Combine with minimal web access only when you really need labels/filters management.

  • Calendar:

    • Use CalDAV-compatible clients so you avoid web UI suggestions and “smart” prompts as much as possible.

  • Drive / Docs:

    • For basic viewing and downloading, use local sync clients or third party file managers where possible.
    • For editing, there is no true AI-free route inside Docs now, but working locally (LibreOffice, etc.) and only syncing files through Drive reduces exposure.

Here I do agree with @stellacadente: if you truly want “off,” at some point you stop using the web UI. Protocols are dumber, which is exactly what you want.

4. Treat Maps and Assistant as “last resort” tools

Maps is particularly tricky because the line between “AI” and “ranking / heuristics” is fuzzy. Instead of trying to surgically turn it off:

  • Use another maps app as your default for everyday navigation
  • Only open Google Maps for cases where coverage really is better
  • Prefer plain directions mode and ignore “Explore,” “For you,” and any “suggested trips / AI itineraries”

For Google Assistant or similar features:

  • Disable hotword activation
  • Avoid using it as a general Q&A system
  • Treat it as dead unless you absolutely need a very specific voice action

The practical effect is to keep Google’s “smart” recommender systems mostly idle in your day-to-day flow.

5. Reduce cross-product linking

Google’s AI features get stronger when multiple products share context:

  • Avoid signing in to Chrome with your main account, or at least turn off cross-device sync of history and passwords for your “low AI” profile
  • Keep YouTube, Search, and Maps from all using the exact same identity when you can stand the inconvenience
  • If you use Android, resist “One tap to sign in with your Google account everywhere” prompts for third party apps and websites

Some of this overlaps with what was already said, but the focus here is different: the more fragmented your identity is, the harder it is for Google to build a single giant predictive persona that all AI features can lean on.

I’m a bit more bullish than @stellacadente on this fragmentation approach; in my experience, decoupling YouTube history from Search history noticeably calmed down some AI experiments.

6. Mentally reframe what “completely off” can realistically mean

If your bar is absolute zero AI, then for core services like Search you really are looking at:

  • Switching default search engine
  • Only hitting Google when you must, and even then treating it like a specialized tool

But if your bar is “I do not want to see or interact with AI surfaces most of the time,” then:

  • Browser extensions
  • DNS/network blocking
  • Non-web clients
  • Fragmented accounts
  • Careful usage habits

can get you close enough that you interact with AI maybe a handful of times a month rather than dozens of times a day.

That distinction matters, because chasing a literal 0 percent AI environment while staying on Google can become never-ending whack-a-mole.

7. Concrete setup that complements what’s already suggested

A slightly different combo from what was already posted:

  • One main Google account for everything, but:

    • Web & App Activity off
    • YouTube history paused
    • No Chrome sign-in on your primary browser

  • A dedicated “Google-only” browser profile:

    • Default search set to an alternative
    • Open Google Search in that profile only when needed
    • Keep all Google services in that same profile to contain the tracking

  • Non-web clients wherever available:

    • IMAP email client for Gmail
    • CalDAV / CardDAV where relevant

This way you do not have to juggle multiple Google accounts, just multiple contexts. It is slightly simpler than the dual-account world that @stellacadente prefers, while still limiting AI sprawl.

You will not get a perfect “1998-style Google” again, but you can absolutely push your experience closer to “minimal AI wallpaper” instead of “AI in your face every click.”