If you’ve felt like every piece of software you use suddenly grew an AI assistant you didn’t ask for, you’re not imagining it. Open your browser, there’s an AI box. Search for something on Google, AI answer at the top. Open Word, AI suggestions in the margin. Even your phone’s keyboard is offering to rewrite your texts now.

I get a lot of questions on the Thursday segment from people who don’t hate AI. They just want their software to work the way it used to. That’s a completely fair position. And the good news is, most of these AI features have an off switch. The companies just don’t make them easy to find.

Here’s the working list of switches, in order from easiest to most annoying.

Why bother turning it off

A few reasons people give me:

  • Privacy. A lot of these features send what you type, search, or dictate to a cloud AI for processing.
  • Bad answers. Google’s AI overview has confidently told people to put glue on pizza. Once you’ve been burned by a wrong answer that looked authoritative, the trust is gone.
  • It’s just slower. A two-second AI summary you didn’t want is still two seconds you didn’t have.
  • You liked it the way it was. That’s a complete sentence. You don’t need a better reason.

1. Firefox: one click, done

Firefox is the only major browser with a real off switch built in.

Open Firefox, go to Settings → AI Controls, and flip Block AI Enhancements to On. That single toggle kills AI translations, link previews, tab suggestions, the AI chatbot sidebar, and (this is the part that matters) any future AI features Firefox adds. Mozilla committed to keeping the switch working as they ship more.

If you’ve been thinking about moving off Chrome, this is one of the better reasons.

2. Google search: a small workaround

Google does not give you an off switch for the AI Overview boxes that show up at the top of search results. They want you to see them. But there are a few ways around it.

The fastest fix, no setup: After you search, click More in the filter bar and choose Web. You get the classic blue-link results, no AI box. Downside: you have to do it on every search.

The permanent Chrome fix: Go to chrome://settings/searchEngines, click Add under Site Search, name it “Google Web,” and use a search URL that includes udm=14 at the end. Then make it your default. Now every search skips the AI overview automatically.

Even easier: Open the Chrome Web Store and search for “Disable AI Overview.” There are several free extensions that do all of the above in about 15 seconds.

Or just leave Google. DuckDuckGo has no AI overviews and strong privacy by default. Startpage gives you Google’s actual results with no tracking and no AI boxes. I keep both bookmarked.

3. Windows 11: Copilot uninstalls like any other app

Microsoft has stuffed Copilot into nearly every corner of Windows 11. The good news is it uninstalls like a normal program.

Uninstall it. Click Start, type “Copilot,” right-click the app, and choose Uninstall. If you also see “Microsoft 365 Copilot” listed, uninstall that one too. This removes the icons from the taskbar and right-click menus.

Turn off the taskbar button. Go to Settings → Personalization → Taskbar and toggle Copilot to Off.

Stop it from auto-launching. Press Ctrl + Shift + Esc to open Task Manager, click Startup Apps, right-click Copilot, and choose Disable.

Heads up: Copilot has a habit of quietly reinstalling itself after major Windows updates. You may have to do this again every few months. If you want a more permanent solution, the free utility Win11Debloat can automate the removal and block reinstalls. Search for it on GitHub.

4. Microsoft Office: one settings panel kills it everywhere

This one is fast. Open Word, Outlook, or Excel, then:

File → Account → Manage Settings → Connected Experiences.

Uncheck the boxes. That disables AI writing suggestions and the cloud-connected AI features across all of your Office apps at once. You only have to do it in one app. The setting applies to your whole Microsoft account.

5. The smaller switches worth knowing about

A few more places AI is hiding:

Windows voice and speech. Go to Settings → Privacy & Security → Speech and turn it off. Stops your voice from being sent to the cloud for online speech recognition.

Typing personalization. Settings → Privacy & Security → Inking & Typing, turn it off. Stops Windows from quietly building a profile of how you type.

Smart replies in email. Most email apps now offer AI-suggested replies and AI-drafted messages. The toggle is usually buried under Compose or General settings. Different in every app, but it’s there.

Phone keyboards. Both iPhone and Android have added AI writing suggestions to their built-in keyboards. Open your phone’s Settings, find Keyboard, and look for anything that mentions writing tools, AI suggestions, or smart compose. You can either dial them down or turn them off entirely.

Check back every few months

The annoying part of all this: software updates have a habit of quietly turning AI features back on, especially on Windows. It’s worth running through this list again two or three times a year just to make sure things stayed off.

These steps cover the loudest offenders. If you go through them, you’ll be most of the way there.

If you want help going through your specific setup, or you’ve hit something that won’t turn off no matter what you do, reach out to DarkHorse IT. We’re on KFGO every Thursday at 7:40 AM, and we’re happy to walk you through it.