You’ll be able to’t fully flip off Google’s AI Overviews, however customers have found a profanity-laced workaround.
If you happen to add “fuck” or a variation of the phrase to your Google search, it turns off the AI-generated abstract on the prime of the web page.
The origins of this hack are unclear, however LA Occasions reporter Keri Blakinger posted a TikTok about it in early March, saying she had heard about it from an episode of the Scriptnotes podcast.
However it seems to have originated from a Jan. 27 Tumblr put up by person flootzavut, who wrote, “Swear in your search request. I know it sounds ridiculous, but the most effective way I’ve found of it not doing the AI summary is just to add ‘fucking’ go [sic] my search.”
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I attempted it, and it really works like a allure. When looking “what’s the most expensive car,” I acquired the standard AI Overview response on the prime of the search outcomes that I’ve gotten within the behavior of robotically scrolling previous. Then I added “fuck” to the top of my question and obtained a blissfully AI-free outcomes web page. I nonetheless acquired the standard mixture of featured snippets (written by people and together with web site hyperlinks) and AI-generated summaries within the Folks Additionally Ask part of the web page, so the hack solely turns off AI Overviews. However no less than the principle outcomes web page is rid of AI litter.
No fucks given.
Credit score: Google
Fucks given.
Credit score: Google
A notice of warning: when utilizing this hack, watch out of how including the f-word can increase your search solely. Impressed by my present obsession, season three of The White Lotus, I found that including “fuck” or “fucking” to a seek for “the best Thailand resorts” returns verrrry totally different outcomes than what I used to be in search of.
The rationale why this hack works is probably going because of Google Search’s security guardrails, which make AI Overviews a really prim summarizer. Google’s AI mannequin Gemini might be skilled to not reply when sure set off phrases are included within the search. Customers who commented on Blakinger’s TikTok put up shared that including “-AI” to your search additionally works. So, you are primarily telling Gemini to not reply.
Whereas there is no “off” setting for AI Overviews, there are different workarounds too, which Mashable and our sibling web site Lifehacker have written about.
However swearing at Google Search is by far the funnest method to do it.
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