How to turn off Google AI Overviews in 2026

Google AI Overviews is the 2026 feature most readers want a switch for, and Google still refuses to ship one. 9to5Google flagged a working modifier on 23 May 2026 that strips the AI summary out of any query, and that workaround is now the cleanest answer to a long-standing complaint.

Why Google AI Overviews show up on almost every search now

Google AI Overviews launched at I/O 2024, expanded worldwide through 2025, and at Google I/O 2026 the company confirmed the feature now serves 2.5 billion monthly users. Liz Reid, who leads Search, also said AI Mode crossed one billion monthly users with queries doubling every quarter. The result for the rest of us is unmistakable: more searches return an AI summary at the top of the page, and the blue links get pushed under the fold on mobile.

The reason there is no global off switch is commercial. Google has spent two years rebuilding Search around Gemini, and a permanent disable button would let competing answer engines like ChatGPT Search and Perplexity look like the only places that respect your time. Google’s official position is that AI Overviews is, in Google’s words, a feature of Search the same way Knowledge Panels and Featured Snippets are. That framing rules out a real toggle.

The -ai modifier method to turn off Google AI Overviews

The trick that surfaced on 23 May 2026 is the cleanest fix readers have had so far. Type your normal query, then add a single space and -ai at the end. The resulting search returns no Google AI Overviews. 9to5Google framed it bluntly: “If you add -ai to the end of your query, the resulting Google Search will be free of AI Overviews. It’s really that simple.”

The mechanic is a real Google search operator that has worked for years. The minus sign tells Search to exclude any page that contains the term that follows. Google’s own search operators help page documents jaguar speed -car as the canonical example. Adding -ai narrows the candidate pool enough that Google’s AI Overviews ranker no longer fires, so the AI summary at the top simply does not appear. The blue links underneath stay almost identical to a normal search.

Three caveats. First, this is a query trick, not a setting, so you have to repeat it every time. Second, it can shave a few legitimate results when the topic actually is about AI – a search for best AI laptop -ai is going to drop pages too aggressively. Third, Google can patch the behaviour at any time. Until it does, this is the simplest method and you can build it into a browser keyword shortcut.

Use the Web filter to bypass Google AI Overviews entirely

If you want a more durable answer than a query modifier, Google still ships the Web filter. After you search, tap or click the More menu in the Search filters bar above the results, then choose Web. The page reloads as a pure ten-blue-links view, with no Google AI Overviews, no People Also Ask block and no Knowledge Panel. It is the closest thing modern Google has to its 2008 look.

You can also pin Web as your default by adding udm=14 to the Google URL. Open chrome://settings/searchEngines, edit the Google entry, and set the search URL to https://www.google.com/search?q=%s&udm=14. Every search you run from the address bar lands on the Web tab, with no Google AI Overviews anywhere in sight. This trick has been documented since May 2024 and Google has not yet blocked it.

What Google AI Overviews are doing to publishers and search quality

If you write online, the reason to know how to turn off Google AI Overviews is not just personal taste. Multiple traffic studies through 2025 and into 2026 showed clicks to blue-link sources falling 30 to 60 percent on queries where an AI Overview now appears. Wikipedia called out a sustained traffic drop and started experimenting with a new mobile reading layout in response. Smaller publishers have been hit harder. Turning Overviews off in your own searches makes the human result page visible again and lets you verify what AI Overviews are summarising, which is the entire reason to care.

It is also worth comparing what you see with and without the AI summary. Google AI Overviews still hallucinate, especially on long-tail product, medical and legal queries, and the Web filter result is what you should fall back on whenever stakes are non-zero. Our recent Gemini vs GPT-5.5 comparison covered the same trade-off at the assistant level.

Should you turn Google AI Overviews off permanently?

For commercial queries, yes. Google AI Overviews summarise prices, return policies and product specs that are routinely wrong, and a wrong price on a $999 (£799 / €929) gadget is worth thirty seconds of your time to verify against the source. Switch the udm=14 default URL on in Chrome, use the -ai trick on the rare query where you do want enriched results, and you cut the worst false-positive rate of any Search feature in a decade.

For exploratory queries – history, recipes, vocabulary, casual research – leaving Google AI Overviews on can still be useful. The AI summary is fast and pretty accurate when there is no transactional stake. Our take on Google’s broader AI bundle in the Google AI Ultra editorial covers the wider picture: Google is going to keep the AI in Search whether you like it or not, so the most you can do is route around it on the queries that matter.