How to Turn Off AI Overview in Google: 5 Methods That Work

Google started rolling out AI Overviews in May 2024, and they reached France, where I work, on July 22, 2026: a summary written by Gemini, placed above the results. If you prefer the list of links, here are the five methods that work today to turn off AI Overview, from the quickest to the most lasting, on desktop and on mobile.

The second part is for website owners: what AI Overviews change for clicks, how to appear in them, and how to opt out if you decide to.

The fastest way: type your search and choose your browser. The tool gives you the link without an AI Overview and the exact setting to apply so you never see it again.

Can you turn off AI Overview in Google?

No, not with an official setting. Google Search's help page lists AI Overviews among its core features, like knowledge panels, and states plainly that these features can't be turned off. Neither your Google account settings, nor Search Labs, nor the Google app offer a switch.

Google does, however, point to the way out: the "Web" filter, which shows only text links. The five methods below all apply this filter, by hand, through the search address or through an extension.

Method 1: Google's "Web" filter

1. Run your search as usual.
2. Click "Web" in the row of tabs under the search bar (All, Images, Videos…). If it doesn't appear, open "More", or scroll the row on mobile.
3. The page reloads with links only: no AI Overview, no boxes.

Limitation: the filter doesn't stick. On the next search, Google goes back to the full display. It is a stopgap, useful on a borrowed phone or a shared computer.

Method 2: the udm=14 parameter in the URL

When you click "Web", Google adds udm=14 to the page address. That parameter is what forces the links-only display. So you can write it yourself:

https://www.google.com/search?q=your+search&udm=14

Replace "your+search" with your words (spaces become +), or let the tool above build the link. Google doesn't document this parameter: it has worked since the Web filter launched in 2024, with no guarantee that it always will.

The third-party site udm14.com does the same thing: you type your search there and it sends you to Google with the parameter. Handy, but your searches then go through an intermediary.

Method 3: "Google Web" as your default search engine

This is the method I recommend. The principle: declare a custom search engine in your browser whose address contains udm=14, then make it the default. Every search typed in the address bar then opens without an AI Overview, and you keep Google's results. The address to paste is the same everywhere:

https://www.google.com/search?udm=14&q=%s

The %s is replaced by your words when you search.

On Google Chrome (desktop)

1. Open Chrome Settings, then the Search engine section.
2. Click Manage search engines and site search.
3. In the "Site search" section, click Add.
4. Name: Google Web. Shortcut: gw. URL: the address above. Save.
5. Open the menu (three dots) on the Google Web row and make it the default.

The steps are identical on Brave and Vivaldi, which are built on the same base as Chrome.

On Microsoft Edge

Open Settings, then Privacy, search, and services, then Address bar and search (under "Search and connected experiences" depending on the version). Click Manage search engines, then Add: name, shortcut and address as for Chrome. Finally, make Google Web the default from the menu on its row.

On Firefox

Open Settings, then Search. Under "Search Shortcuts", click Add, enter the name Google Web, the address above and a keyword (for example @gw). Scroll back to the top of the page and choose Google Web as your default search engine.

On Safari (Mac)

Safari doesn't let you add a custom search engine: its list of search engines is closed. Use an extension instead, which is method 4.

Method 4: an extension that removes AI Overviews

• udm14 for Safari (App Store, free): redirects every Google search to the Web view. It works on Mac, iPhone and iPad. Turn it on in Safari's extension settings and allow it on google.com.
• udm14 for Firefox (Firefox add-ons catalog, free): same principle, including in Firefox for Android.
• Bye Bye, Google AI (Chrome Web Store, free): hides the AI Overview in the page and, optionally, other blocks such as discussions, videos or ads.

Two precautions. An extension that acts on your Google pages sees your searches: choose one that only asks for access to google.com and publishes its data policy. Next, an extension that hides a block based on the page's code can stop working when Google changes that page. Those that redirect to udm=14 hold up better.

Method 5: the "-ai" trick in the query

Adding -ai at the end of the search (for example "home insurance comparison -ai") makes the AI Overview disappear, according to the tech outlets that spread the trick. The minus sign tells Google to exclude pages containing the word "ai": the query changes, and useful results can disappear along with the summary. I keep it for one-off searches, when the Web filter isn't at hand.

Turn off AI Overview on mobile (Android and iPhone)

On iPhone and iPad

With Safari, install udm14 for Safari, then open Settings, Safari, Extensions (Settings, Apps, Safari on iOS 18 and later) to turn it on and allow it on google.com. With Chrome or the Google app on iPhone, you are left with the Web filter, to tap after each search.

On Android

Chrome for Android has no field for entering the address of a custom search engine. Two solutions: the Web filter on each search, or Firefox for Android with the udm14 add-on, which makes the setting permanent.

In the Google app

No option removes AI Overviews from the Google app. If you want results without a summary on your phone, use a browser set up as described above.

What doesn't work

• Search Labs. AI Overviews are no longer an experiment but a standard search feature: nothing in Search Labs removes them.
• Google account settings. No account or history setting affects AI Overviews.
• Signing out or using private browsing. In France, AI Overviews show for all users, signed in or not.

Hide the AI Mode button in Chrome

AI Mode is a different feature: a conversational search that only opens if you choose it. In Chrome on desktop, its button can appear on the right of the address bar. To remove it, right-click the address bar and uncheck "Always show AI Mode". I explain how it works in my article on Google AI Mode.

Google AI Overview: what exactly is it?

An AI Overview is a summary written by Gemini and shown above the classic results, with links to the pages that support it. Google only shows one when its systems judge that a generated answer adds something: many searches don't get one.

To build it, Google can run several related searches in parallel on subtopics of the question (the "query fan-out" technique), then write the summary from the pages it finds. A page must be indexed and eligible to show with a snippet to be cited. No special markup is needed.

In France, AI Overviews and AI Mode arrived on July 22, 2026, announced on Google France's blog and powered by Gemini 3.5, two years after the global rollout began in May 2024. The acronym SGE (Search Generative Experience) referred to the trial version that came before them.

What AI Overviews change for websites

If you run a website, the question isn't how to turn it off but what it costs you, and what it can bring you.

Fewer clicks on simple questions

The most quoted measurement comes from the Pew Research Center: across 68,879 searches made by 900 American adults in March 2025, users clicked a classic result in 8% of visits when an AI summary was shown, versus 15% without a summary. The links inside the summary itself were clicked in only 1% of visits. These are US figures, and the mechanism is the same in France.

What I see on the sites I monitor points the same way, with sharp differences by page type: definitions and simple questions lose clicks, while comparisons, pricing pages and experience-based content hold up much better. I compare the two approaches in my article GEO vs SEO.

Cited sources, all in the same position

In Search Console, a link cited in an AI Overview counts as an impression, and a click on that link counts as a click. All the links in the same AI Overview get the same position: that of the block. Since August 31, 2026, every site has had access to a performance report dedicated to generative AI: it isolates your impressions in AI Overviews and AI Mode, by page, country, device and date (Discover has its own report). It doesn't give clicks yet, which are still counted with the rest of the Web-type traffic.

The signal to watch

Stable impressions, an unchanged average position and falling clicks for several weeks: that is the signature of an AI Overview on your queries. Compare click-through rate at constant position before and after AI Overviews launched in your market (July 22, 2026 in France), over at least two months before drawing conclusions. To go further and measure your presence in these answers as well as in ChatGPT, the AI visibility audit method applies as is.

How to appear in Google's AI Overviews

Google's documentation for publishers is clear: there are no additional requirements and no special optimization to appear in AI Overviews. No file, no tag, no dedicated structured data. Its guide to optimizing for generative AI, updated on July 10, 2026, goes further: for Google, optimizing for these answers is still SEO, and tactics such as artificially chunking content or the llms.txt file have no effect on its search. An indexed page that is eligible for a snippet and genuinely useful can be cited. In practice, five levers make the difference, from most to least effective.

1. Already rank well. In the cases I have analyzed, the cited sources almost all come from the top classic results, on the query or its variants. Traditional SEO isn't bypassed, it is reused.
2. Answer in the first few lines. An extractable passage makes sense on its own. If the answer comes after three paragraphs of context, it won't be picked up.
3. Cover the neighboring questions. Since Google runs searches on the subtopics of the question, a page that also covers price, steps or comparison has more chances of being selected. Without creating one page per query variant: Google classes that practice as scaled content abuse.
4. Structure. Subheadings phrased as questions, tables, lists. Structured data doesn't guarantee citation, but it must match the visible text.
5. Bring first-hand information. A figure from your own data, a proven method, a dated account of experience: that is what separates a cited source from an ignored one.

These levers overlap with those of GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) and AEO, optimizing content for AI answers. If you want to know which pages on your site to strengthen first, that is the work I do as part of my GEO support.

Opting your site out of AI Overviews: the Search Console setting

Google has added a dedicated control in Search Console: Settings, then Generative AI in Search. It has been available in France since the July launch and for every site worldwide since August 31, 2026. Three choices are possible:

• Include the site's links and content in generative AI features (the default setting).
• Exclude the site's links and content: no more citations, and no more impressions or clicks from these features.
• Inherit the setting of the parent property, for example the main domain.

The exclusion covers AI Overviews, AI Mode and Discover's generative AI features, and takes effect within a few days. Google states that this choice is not a ranking signal for the rest of Search, and that it doesn't control model training: that is the role of Google-Extended. Finer controls still exist: nosnippet, data-nosnippet and max-snippet limit what Google takes from a page.

My take: for most sites, opting out is a bad deal. You lose visibility in the answers without getting the clicks back, since other sources take your place. I only consider it for content whose value disappears once summarized, and after measuring the real effect with the generative AI report.

Written by

Anthony Courtin

SEO, GEO & AI automation consultant

I help SMEs and independent professionals with their visibility (Google, ChatGPT, Perplexity) and with the real use of AI at work. I run sessions inside companies to train teams and rethink processes. Everything I write here, I use on client work.

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