The world has gone AI mad recently, and Google has jumped on board, adding AI overviews to all search results. Most of these overviews are terrible, providing horrendous and often incorrect information. The good news is that there's a quick and easy way to get rid of Google AI search results when using Google search from any internet browser. Follow along as we show you how.
Takeaways:
- How to disable AI Overviews in Google Search.
- How to turn off AI results in Google Search from any browser.
How to Turn off Google AI Overviews - Search Google Without AI Search Results.
Everyone is trying to implement AI as fast as possible these days but it feels as though no one has really stopped to ask the big question "Just because you can. That doesn't mean you should". It doesn't really matter though because AI is purely about financial optimisation and not for the benefit of humanity in general. It's essentially capitalism on steroids... AI and everything that comes with it is one of the biggest philosophical questions to date and one that doesn't have a clear answer. That's completely off-topic though so let's get back to the task of showing you how to remove all AI overview answers and other junk from Google Search so that you only get true Web results. This will work for any browser you are using. Firefox, Edge, Chrome, Brave, Opera, Etc.
Add a Custom Google Search Engine URL to your browser.
To begin open your Internet browser and go to the location where you can update and change your search engine. This will vary a little for each browser but you should come to a place where you can see all of the search engines listed. You should also see an option to Edit or Add them.
For Brave (what I'm using) go to Settings > Search Engine.
Then click Add below Site Search.
This will open a new window where you can set up your new search engine. For Name and Shortcut, you can enter whatever you want. However, for "URL with %s in place of query:" you need to add the one listed below.
Name: (Name it whatever you want) I named mine "GOOGLE NO AI"
Shortcut: AI
URL with %s in place of query: https://www.google.com/search?q=%s&udm=14
The primary factor here that changes the search results is the addition of udm=14 to the end of the URL which tells Google you aren't interested in AI garbage that is taking traffic away from the people who create the content they are
pulling with essentially no credit.
If you want to go one Better! Switch to Ecosia!
Personally, I would just switch away from Google entirely and start using Ecosia. I have been for the last 5 or so years and I honestly can't tell the difference in the results. It's very rare that I find myself having to go back to Google for anything. We have a guide on it here, though I must admit it probably needs to be updated as Ecosia has grown quite a bit since we wrote it.
