How to Get Rid of AI Overview: What Works in 2026

If you have been searching for how to get rid of AI Overview, you have plenty of company. That exact phrase is the fastest rising query attached to AI Overviews on Google Trends this week, up about 1,500% worldwide. Meanwhile Google spent the summer shipping an opt-out switch and finished the global rollout on August 31, 2026. However, it was built for website owners, not for the people reading the results. The controls that work for you are different, and they are simpler than most guides suggest.

The fastest route is a filter Google built itself. Run any search, then look along the row of filters above the results for a tab labelled Web. On a narrow screen it often hides under More. Click it and the page reloads with classic blue links only, no AI summary on top.

Google launched that filter on May 15, 2024, the same month AI Overviews arrived. Its stated reason was plain enough: some people simply prefer to see links to web pages, especially on slow connections or when hunting for longer documents. As a result, the cleanest way to remove the summary is a button Google shipped for exactly that purpose.

One catch matters. The filter applies to the search you are looking at, not to your account. Run a new query and the summary returns. For a single search, that is the whole answer to how to get rid of AI Overview: one tab, one click.

This is where udm=14 comes in. It is simply the URL form of that same Web tab, so adding it to a Google search address loads the plain results directly. Nothing about it is a trick or a policy breach.

Worth knowing: Google has never documented the udm values publicly. The developer community mapped them by testing, which is why the parameter spread through forums rather than through Google’s own help pages. In addition, that also means Google could renumber it without warning.

Make the plain results your default

To make it stick, add https://www.google.com/search?q=%s&udm=14 as a custom search engine in your browser settings and set it as the default. Then every search you type in the address bar skips the summary automatically.

Many readers also remember a toggle in Search Labs and cannot find it any more. Reportedly it was removed for most accounts once AI Overviews graduated out of testing. Either way, it never removed AI Overviews from ordinary results, so it is not the switch people think they lost.

Mobile works the same way, with less room. Swipe the filter carousel under the search box until Web appears, or open More and pick it there. The summary disappears for that query.

On iPhone, Safari has no setting for this, because AI Overviews come from Google rather than from the browser. Instead, save a udm=14 search as a bookmark or a home screen shortcut and start your searches from there.

Extensions and third-party apps

Desktop users have a third option: browser extensions and userscripts that hide the block automatically. There is even a paid iOS app on the App Store built purely to hide the panel. Still, treat third-party add-ons with the usual care, because they can read your search pages.

Here is the change that put AI Overviews back in the news. Google has finished rolling out two Search Console features: a generative AI performance report, and a control it calls Search generative AI. In Google’s words, quoted by Search Engine Land: “As of August 31, 2026, we’ve rolled out this control to all websites worldwide.”

Flipping that toggle keeps a site out of AI Overviews, AI Mode and AI Overviews in Discover, while leaving normal Search results alone. Google also says the setting is not used as a ranking signal outside those AI features. The Gemini app sits outside the control entirely.

Notice who the switch belongs to. It is a site owner’s decision about their own pages, and it changes nothing about what you see when you search. Because of this, a reader looking for an off button will not find one in Search settings.

Why the switch is blunt

The opt-out is blunt for publishers too. It works at property level, all or nothing, with no page-level choice yet. Search Engine Journal notes a further sting: roughly 15.5% of US trending news queries now place the Top Stories carousel inside an AI Overview, so opting out can cost a publisher both placements at once.

Put the last two years in order and a pattern appears. Every control Google has shipped since 2024 went to publishers or to regulators, while readers were left with the Web filter and nothing more.

A timeline of the controls Google shipped

The dates below track the feature from launch to the current opt-out, and who each step was actually aimed at.

The pressure behind those dates is easy to explain. A Pew Research study found that only 1% of users click the source links inside an AI Overview, which is why publishers went to courts and regulators rather than to a settings page.

Gmail now has its own feature with the same name. On January 8, 2026, Google announced a Gemini 3 refresh of Gmail that added AI Overviews to the inbox, summarising long threads at the top of a conversation. Those summaries rolled out to everyone at no cost, while question answering and Proofread stayed with Google AI Pro and Ultra plans. For context on where those paid tiers sit, see our breakdown of the Gemini AI usage billing changes.

Turning the summaries off is possible, but not surgical. Google’s own Gmail help page says you must switch off two settings together: Smart features in Gmail, Chat, and Meet and Smart features in Google Workspace. Both live in Gmail settings under the General tab.

Be ready for the cost. Turning both off also disables Help Me Write, Proofread and other smart tools across Gmail and Workspace. Google documents no narrower toggle, so it is the summary card or the whole set.

TikTok search has picked up the same habit, and the same complaint. AI summaries appear above results for high intent searches, and on longer clips, which is why people now look for a way to hide them.

According to reporting on the feature, TikTok has been testing a control that lets users suppress those summaries in search. Coverage so far suggests there is no single switch that turns off AI across the app, since recommendations run on it. Because the test is still moving, check your own Settings and privacy menu before assuming the option is missing.

In short, how to get rid of AI Overview depends on which product you are standing in. Google Search hands you a filter, Gmail hands you a blunt pair of settings, and TikTok is still deciding what to hand you at all.

If you are dodging AI summaries because you want real, citable sources, compare the best AI research tools that show their references instead of hiding them. And for the browser side of this shift, read what happened when Microsoft automated its review queue in our Edge extensions news report.

*Sources: Search Engine Land, Search Engine Journal, 9to5Google, Google Blog, Gmail Help, SUSO Digital, Loyens & Loeff, Wikipedia, Distractify.* *Photos: Googleplex HQ (cropped) by Asoundd, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped and resized. Google sign, Charleston Road, Mountain View by Dietmar Rabich, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped and resized.*