Can you turn off AI Overviews on Google?
No, not with a setting. Google's help page on AI Overviews calls them a core part of Search, and says plainly: "Features cannot be turned off."
What Google does give you is a filter. And that filter is what every method below is built on.
| Method | Where it works | Every search? |
|---|---|---|
| The Web filter | Any device | No, one search at a time |
udm=14 as your default search | Chrome, Edge and Brave on a computer | Yes |
| A browser extension | Chrome on a computer | Yes, until Google changes its page |
| The search box on this page | Any device | Yes, for searches you start here |
1. Use the Web filter (one search)
- 1Search Google as usual.
- 2Under the search box, click Web. If you don't see it, it's under More.
- 3The results reload as plain links: no AI Overview, no other boxes.
Google describes it like this: "This filter displays only text-based links without features like AI Overviews." The catch is that it lasts for that one search. Your next search starts with the AI Overview again.
2. Make it permanent in Chrome with udm=14
When you click Web, Google adds udm=14 to the search link. So if you make a search engine that always adds it, every search you type in the address bar skips the AI Overview.
- 1In Chrome, open
chrome://settings/searchEngines. - 2Next to Site search, click Add.
- 3Name: Google Web. Shortcut: web. URL: the address below.
- 4Click Add, then the three dots next to Google Web, then Make default.
https://www.google.com/search?q=%s&udm=14Now every search from the address bar opens the Web results. Edge and Brave are built on the same engine as Chrome, so the same steps work there: edge://settings/searchEngines and brave://settings/searchEngines.
This changes searches from the address bar. If you go to google.com and search from its own box, you'll get the AI Overview again, because that box doesn't use your browser's setting.
What is udm=14?
It's one of the settings Google keeps in the results page's link. udm sets the type of results:udm=2 is images, udm=7 videos, and udm=14 plain web links. The last lesson of our Google search operators course takes the whole link apart: Google search URL parameters.
3. On your phone
There's no setting on phones either, and the Google app doesn't let you change how it searches. What works:
- 1After you search, tap Web in the row under the search box (swipe the row if you don't see it).
- 2Or use the search box at the top of this page, and add the page to your home screen so it's one tap away.
4. Browser extensions
Extensions like Bye Bye Google AI on the Chrome Web Store hide the AI Overview after the page loads. They work without any setup, with two catches: they depend on how Google's page is built, so they can stop working when Google changes it, and they need permission to read and change Google's pages. Check what an extension asks for before you add it.
What about AI Mode?
AI Mode is a separate tab, not part of the normal results. It only runs when you open it: click the AI Mode tab, or the button under an AI Overview that carries on in AI Mode. You can't remove the tab, but if you search with udm=14, you never see the AI Overview that leads into it.
Turning off "AI in Search" in Search Labs doesn't remove AI Overviews. Google says it opts you out of new AI experiments, nothing more.
Why this matters if you work in SEO
The Web results are the closest thing to the old list of ten blue links: who ranks, in what order, with nothing on top. When you check rankings, study competitors or look for gaps, udm=14 shows you the results as plain links. Combine it with search operators, like site: or intitle:, and you have a clean research view. Our search operator generator adds it for you: under "Kind of results", pick "Web only". And every operator is in one cheat sheet.