How to disable or avoid intrusive AI – librarian.net

search<br>expand

Skip to content

[Put on your own oxygen mask first! Image from San Diego Air and Space Museum Archives]<br>One of the biggest questions I get at Drop-In Time at the library (besides "what is taking up all my cloud storage?") is how to disable or avoid intrusive AI that shows up where people don’t want it. This is a guide for people who would like less intrusive AI in their tech environment. Maybe you like AI and find it useful? That’s fine, this document is probably not for you. Additions/edits welcome. Leave a comment or drop me an email. This page is available at the short URL https://NoToAI.org

Google Workspace (Gmail, Google Docs &c)

In Gmail, click the Settings (gear) icon, and then select See all settings . On the General tab, scroll down to Google Workspace smart features . Click Manage Workspace smart feature settings and toggle off two options: Smart features in Google Workspace and Smart features in other Google products . Uncheck the box next to Turn on smart features in Gmail, Chat, and Meet on the same tab.

In Gmail  for Android the workspace smart features are under the Gmail hamburger/dropdown menu  – Settings – Account name

Apple Intelligence & Siri

Only exists on iPhone 16 and newer Macs and iPads Open Settings (iPhone or iPad) or System Settings (Mac) and choose Apple Intelligence & Siri . Then turn off the Apple Intelligence option. Confirm your choice in the dialog that appears by tapping Turn Off Apple Intelligence . More details on how to turn off specific parts of Apple Intelligence and leave others alone.

Apple has a "learn from this application" feature which can be on even when Apple Intelligence is not on. To turn it off

For Mac: go to System Settings – Apple Intelligence & Siri . Select About Siri, Dictation & Privacy… near the end of the page, turn off apps you don’t want Siri to learn from

For iOS: Settings – Apple Intelligence & Siri , scroll down to Apps , disable "Learn from this App"

Copilot/Windows 11

Copilot exists both as an embedded AI agent in Office 365 and also built into the Windows 11 operating system. Right-click the Copilot entry in the Start menu and select Uninstall . If that option isn’t there, head over to your installed apps list (Start – Settings – Apps ) and uninstall Copilot from there.

In certain builds of Windows 11, Copilot is stuck into the OS, so a simple uninstall might not work. In that case, you can toggle it off via the settings: Start – Settings – Personalization – Taskbar – turn off Copilot File Explorer has some AI built into it which can be turn-onable accidentally. To remove. Start – Settings – Privacy & Security – Click to Do.

Notepad has its own special Copilot, so you’ll need to disable AI there separately. Open the Notepad settings, find the AI features section (or a sparkly icon near a Writing Tools section), and toggle Copilot off.

Office 365/Outlook There is a separate Enable Copilot checkbox in each app and the checkbox only applies to that app on that device. Read more about how to turn it off. If you don’t have that option, you can change your privacy settings to disable Copilot.

"Text and image generation " are turned on by default, affecting Notepad, Photos, Snipping Tool, and Xbox. Turn this off. It is complicated, though not impossible, to remove Copilot from your Windows computer entirely. Here is a link that gets into the details. If you feel comfortable installing software O&O ShutUp 10 is one way to do that, Win11DeBloat is another.

Browser-embedded AI

Chrome/AI Nano

Type chrome://flags into the address bar and hit Enter . You’ll see a list of system flags and a search bar; look for GLIC [Google live in Chrome]. This will filter the massive list down to about a dozen AI features. The second search term you’ll need in this window is "Gemini " set them all to "disabled." Don’t accidentally enable the couple of settings which default to disabled.

Edge

Similar to Chrome: type edge://flags into the Edge address bar, hit Enter , then type “AI ” or “Copilot ” into the search box.

Click Appearance in the left-hand Settings sidebar, and scroll down to Copilot and sidebar

Turn the sidebar off , and turn off the “Personalize my top sites in customize sidebar ” and “Allow sidebar apps to show notifications ” toggles.

Click Copilot under App specific settings . Turn off “Show Copilot button on the toolbar .” Then, back in the Copilot and sidebar settings, turn off the “Show sidebar button” toggle that has just appeared.

Click Languages in the left-hand navigation. Disable “Use Copilot for writing on the web.”

Firefox

The latest Firefox (148 and later) has a feature to block all AI enhancements. So update, if you can, go to Settings and look for AI Controls . Turn Block AI Enhancements on (or select more granularly from the list)

Using Firefox, this extension removes a lot of the AI junk if you use Google as your default search engine.

More...