Going online in 2026 means subjecting yourself to a relentless bombardment of generative AI tools. How about a few AI agents to get you started? Do you want to use this chatbot sidebar? Would you like every search query to be answered with an AI summary? While there’s no off switch to avoid this smorgasbord of AI tools entirely, there is one keyboard trick you can use to dodge Google’s AI Overviews for a brief respite.
If you don’t want to see an AI-generated summarization of webpage links when you use Google Search, you can type “–ai” at the end of your query. It’s an option WIRED readers highlighted under a recent article about scams found in Google’s AI Overviews. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed using this nifty addendum over the past week, and I wish Google offered a permanent toggle with similar zapping capabilities.
“People find Search more helpful with AI Overviews, and they’re coming back to search more as a result,” a Google spokesperson tells WIRED. “We offer a ‘web’ filter to see links only, but people only use it for a tiny fraction of searches.” The spokesperson compared AI Overviews to other features baked into the search results, like knowledge panels, that can’t be removed.
If you want to try this out, you can put any combination of letters or numbers attached to an en dash, like “–1” or “–z,” at the end of your Google search, and it works just the same, as reported by PCMag. It prevents AI Overviews from appearing completely. The en dash function in Google is designed to remove whatever topic you attach to it from the search results. The removal of AI Overviews seems incidental, and it’s unclear how long this trick will stick around. After typing in a result, you can also tap on the “Web” tab—sometimes hidden under “More”—right below the search bar to see site links.
In my tests, the –ai trick appears to be limited to search queries in computer browsers. When I tried it in the Safari and Chrome apps on iOS, Google’s AI-generated “web guide” still popped up prominently in the results. However, Google does offer a Classic Search button on the right side of these results. After clicking that button, the results will reload and show you a mix of website links and short-form videos. The exception seems to be on Android—at least on a Google Pixel phone we tested with, using “–ai” removed AI Overviews.
It’s a nice change from the current default when I’m using my laptop, and I’ll likely continue typing “–ai” at the end of every search until it becomes muscle memory, just like I add “Reddit” all the time to my queries. Even so, I feel nostalgic for the minimalist Google I grew up with and the utter simplicity of those top 10 blue links.
If you’re looking to switch search engines to a service without any generative AI, DuckDuckGo and Brave are two solid options worth considering. Both search engines allow users to toggle AI summaries on and off in the settings. You don’t need to change browsers to use a different search engine, as Google lets you swap the default search engine in Chrome’s settings menu.
When Google launched AI Overviews in 2024, it was a major turning point for the search engine. But AI Overviews was widely mocked on social media for incorrect answers, like an infamous result that suggested baking pizza with glue. It didn’t stop Google, though, as the company has continued to lean further into AI tools since the initial release of AI Overviews and has kept iterating on the user experience.
While Google claims the accuracy of these results has improved over time, generative AI tools still sometimes insert inaccuracies when summarizing information. So, it’s always worth clicking through and double-checking anything you read in an AI Overview. All the more reason, I think, to cut out the middlebot completely and visit those dang websites directly.
Source: www.wired.com
