The company began implementing a major update to its search engine last week as part of a comprehensive AI initiative.
This change comes as Google faces growing competition from ChatGPT creator OpenAI.
Users in the US have started noticing the new AI Overviews feature, which displays AI-generated answers at the top of search results pages.
Currently, AI Overviews are only available for testing in the UK, but there are plans to roll it out globally. Unfortunately, there’s no official way to disable it.
Many users have taken to social media to express their frustration with the feature, calling it “annoying” and “intrusive.”
“Is there a way to turn off the Google AI overview thing? It’s so annoying,” one person wrote on X.
“How do I delete AI overview!!!” another wrote.
“This is so annoying Google, what have you done!!!” exclaimed a third user.
Another user added: “Google may need to rethink its latest search results rollout + AI Overview before people lose trust in Google and switch to Bing.
“I feel like Google has forgotten that people want to use search engines to find accurate & credible information quickly.”
In response, a frustrated user developed a Chrome extension that hides AI Overviews.
The Hide Google AI Overviews extension has already been downloaded 3,000 times and has a five-star rating.
“Recognizing that not all users appreciate the AI-powered summaries and insights which can clutter search results, this extension offers a clean, streamlined interface that focuses solely on traditional results,” the developers wrote.
While there is no official way to disable AI Overviews, Google has introduced a new filter.
The Web filter, found under the More tab, allows users to see only text-based links.
“We’ve added this after hearing from some that there are times when they’d prefer to just see links to web pages in their search results, such as if they’re looking for longer-form text documents, using a device with limited internet access, or those who just prefer text-based results shown separately from search features,” Google said.
