Somewhere between the habit of asking a question and the habit of reading the answers that follow, a quiet dispute has taken shape over who gets to speak first when people go looking for knowledge. ZDNet has set out a guide for readers who would rather reach the sources themselves, since Google has offered no official way to turn off the AI summaries now placed at the top of its results. The reasoning rests on evidence that people click through to original links far less often when a machine-written paragraph has already answered them, and on a memory of confident errors that still makes many
How to Get Rid of Google AI Overviews: Four Ways to Restore Classic Search
Google still hasn't created an official off switch for AI Overviews.
Mark
Why does a how-to on hiding a search feature matter?
Mimi
Because Google offers no official off switch. Every fix here is a workaround, and the Pew numbers explain why people want one: clicks on traditional links drop from 15% to 8% when an Overview appears.
Mark
Which workaround is easiest?
Mimi
Adding "-AI" to the query. It works on desktop and mobile, and it's the one the author uses himself.
Luke
Before we lean on the Pew figures, note what they cover: 900 US adults. That's one study, and it shows clicking behavior, not why people click less.
Mimi
Fair. The guide does say users were likelier to end their session after an Overview, but that's an association.
Mark
What about the glue-on-pizza example?
Luke
It's a mid-2024 incident, and the guide offers it as a reminder, not as a measure of how often Overviews are wrong. We don't have an error rate here.
Mimi
And Web Guide is an experiment that may never leave Search Labs.
Mark
So how long will these fixes last?
Luke
Unknown. The author says extensions or Web Guide could vanish, and he promises updates if that happens.
Der Puls
- Google's AI Overviews now greet many searchers with a written answer before any link appears, and there is no official switch to turn them off.
- Pew data suggests users click traditional links about 8% of the time when a summary appears, compared with 15% without one, a gap that worries publishers and curious readers alike.
- Readers are improvising: appending "-AI" to queries, opening the Web tab, creating a Chrome shortcut, or installing extensions that hide the AI panel.
- Some alternatives are fragile, since Web Guide is only an experiment and extensions can be removed, so the workarounds may not hold for long.
- For now the path back to classic blue links is available but patchy, and users who want it must keep adjusting as Google shifts its tools.
Somewhere between the habit of asking a question and the habit of reading the answers that follow, a quiet dispute has taken shape over who gets to speak first when people go looking for knowledge. ZDNet has set out a guide for readers who would rather reach the sources themselves, since Google has offered no official way to turn off the AI summaries now placed at the top of its results. The reasoning rests on evidence that people click through to original links far less often when a machine-written paragraph has already answered them, and on a memory of confident errors that still makes many wary. What the guide offers is a set of small, imperfect acts of reclaiming one's own path through the web, each dependent on experiments and tools that could vanish at any time.
Ask Google something ordinary, like how to clear the cache on an iPhone, and you may now get a paragraph written by AI before you see a single link. ZDNet's guide is for people who would rather go to the sources themselves, because Google has not offered any official way to switch these AI Overviews off.
The guide leans on a Pew Research Center study of 900 US adults. Users clicked a traditional link 8% of the time when an AI Overview appeared, against 15% when none did. Only about 1% of Overview sightings led to a click on a source cited inside the summary. The guide also recalls the mid-2024 episode in which the feature suggested putting glue on pizza, a reminder of how confidently wrong these answers can be.
The simplest fix is to add "-AI" to a query, which returns standard blue links on desktop, mobile and the Google app. Other options are more involved. Web Guide, a desktop Search Labs experiment, puts classic links first, though it still uses Gemini to group them. The Web tab shows roughly ten plain links, and Chrome users can set up a shortcut to reach it quickly. Browser extensions hide the AI panel, though the response is still generated out of view. Some readers simply switch to search engines such as Dogpile, Lilo, Metacrawler or Qwant.
None of these methods is guaranteed. As of July 2025 they are the only known workarounds, and any of them could stop working if Google ends an experiment or an extension disappears. The author says he will update the guide if that happens.
Type a question into Google, something ordinary like how to clear an iPhone's cache, and the first thing you are likely to see is not a list of links. It is a paragraph written by AI that answers the question before you scroll. That is Google's AI Overviews, and ZDNet has published a guide to getting around it, because Google has not provided an official way to switch it off.
The case for avoiding the feature rests partly on a Pew Research Center study that tracked 900 US adults. When an AI Overview appeared, users clicked a traditional search link 8% of the time. When no summary was shown, the figure was 15%. About 58% of the adults saw at least one AI Overview during their searches, and only 1% of those sightings led to a click on a source cited inside the summary. Users were also likelier to end their browsing session after seeing an Overview.
The guide also raises accuracy. It recalls the mid-2024 episode when AI Overviews recommended using glue to keep cheese on pizza. AI Overviews launched in the US in May 2024, after being unveiled at Google I/O earlier that month. Google says they are now available in more than 200 countries and territories and more than 40 languages.
The first workaround is the simplest: add "-AI" to the end of a query, for example "how to turn off ACR on TV -AI." It works on desktop, mobile and in the Google app, and returns standard blue links. A featured snippet may still appear. Those have existed for years, carry a prominent link to the source and usually show a small excerpt, unlike Overviews, which often summarize the entire answer.
The second is Web Guide, a Search Labs experiment available only on desktop. Users sign in, open Search Labs, select Web Guide and switch on the toggle labeled "Try the new AI-organized web results." It still uses Gemini to group links by topic, but classic links sit at the top and generated summaries drop lower. The guide notes it is only a test and may never leave Search Labs.
The third is Google's Web tab, usually tucked under the More menu, which gives roughly ten blue links and no AI summaries. Clicking over to it each time is tedious, so Chrome users can create a custom site search shortcut. In Settings, under Search engine and then Manage search engines and site search, they add an entry named Google (Web) with the shortcut https://www.google.com/ and the URL {google:baseURL}search?udm=14&q=%s, then make it the default. The guide says Firefox and Edge have equivalent panels on desktop, and Firefox allows it on mobile too. One caution: Web Guide changes the Web tab to show AI summaries below the blue links, so the two options should not be combined.
The fourth is a browser extension. Avram Piltch of Tom's Hardware built one for Chrome that hides the AI panel; the response is still generated, but out of view. Others can be found in the Chrome Web Store by searching "Hide AI Overviews" or "Bye Bye, Google AI." Edge has similar extensions, and both work only on desktop.
Users can also leave Google. Dogpile, Lilo, Metacrawler and Qwant do not serve AI summaries over classic links. DuckDuckGo has an AI assist feature, but it can be disabled when it appears. The author says he simply adds "-AI" to all his queries.
These are the only known workarounds as of July 2025, and none is guaranteed. Extensions can disappear, and Search Labs could end the Web Guide experiment. The author says he will update the guide if any of them stop working.
Bemerkenswerte Zitate
There is no official way to turn off Google's AI Overviews, but you can hide or avoid them; these are the only known workarounds as of July 2025.— ZDNet guide
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