How to turn off AI Overview in Google Search, delete Gemini activity
If you've opened up your phone to do a Google Search lately, you've probably noticed Google's new language model, Gemini, at work. Google now produces AI-generated answers to your search queries, pulling from everything on the internet to provide you with the information you need. Gemini is a multimodal model, which means it can "generalize and seamlessly understand, operate across and combine different types of information including text, code, audio, image and video," according to Google.
But some people are wary of it and want to know how they can turn Google Search's new AI feature off. Is it possible? Here's what we know. The previous Search Generative Experience that included a similar feature was opt-in for users, but AI Overviews aren't, USA TODAY previously reported. AI Overviews are a part of Google Search now and will show up if your queries trigger them, though they don't yet show up for every query.
Filtering Results
There is a way to get closer to the previous results model, though. You can filter for web links by clicking on the "more" tab and then "web" to filter your results.
Google all in on AI and Gemini: How it will affect your Google searches
If you are conducting web searches in the Google app, you can turn off Gemini's results by following these steps.
"Gemini used to be just a chatbot, and now we're seeing it become a personal AI assistant," Amar Subramanya, vice president of engineering for Gemini experiences, said in an interview with USA TODAY, but some aren't as excited about the integration.
Deleting Activity
Search history and activity is automatically deleted by Google after 18 months, but it can be deleted any time by following these steps.
Contributing: Felecia Wellington Radel
