How to Turn Off AI Overviews on Any Browser or Phone

Short Answer

You cannot turn off AI Overviews, the artificial intelligence (AI) summaries Google prints above its search results. Every guide we write here starts from Google's own support page rather than a screenshot of someone's menu, because the menu paths in most write-ups have already moved. Google's help page for AI Overviews says they "are a core Google Search feature, like knowledge panels" and that "Features cannot be turned off."

You can load a version of Google Search that carries no AI Overview and make it your address-bar default. Then you never see one and you never type anything extra. The setup takes about two minutes in Chrome and in Firefox 140 and later. Microsoft and Opera document no equivalent field for Edge or Opera. The setup is not possible at all in Safari, which takes no custom search address on either a Mac or an iPhone.

What Google Lets You Turn Off

Google supports exactly one control for AI Overviews, and it is the Web filter. The same help page that rules out an off switch adds: "However, you can select the Web filter after you perform a search. This filter displays only text-based links without features like AI Overviews." We read the Computer, Android and iPhone versions of that page on 2 September 2026. The wording is identical on all three, so there is no platform where a hidden toggle exists.

There is a second control that looks like the answer and is not. Signed in on a computer, you can open a new tab, click Labs, click Manage, and toggle off "AI in Search". We see readers treat that toggle as the off switch more often than anything else on this topic. The toggle ends your enrolment in Search experiments, and it leaves AI Overviews exactly where they were, because Google classes them as a shipped feature rather than an experiment.

Four methods work: the Web filter, the udm=14 web address that loads the same view, a browser extension that hides the block, and leaving Google. The first three are below. The fourth is a different decision, and we cover it in our guide to search engines without AI.

The Web Filter and the udm=14 URL

The Web filter is a tab on the Google results page that returns plain text links and nothing else. Google's own page on search filters puts it in the row under the search box. That page says: "Below the search box, select the type of results you want, like All, Images, or News. For more options, click More." On a wide desktop window Web usually sits in that row already. On a narrow window or a phone it hides under More, which is why most people never find it.

That same view has its own URL, and that URL is the part worth keeping. Adding &udm=14 to a Google search address loads the web-only results directly, with no AI Overview drawn and nothing to click first:

https://www.google.com/search?q=your+search&udm=14

Be clear about what udm=14 is before you rely on it. Google has never documented it. We searched Google's Search help and Google Search Central and found no page that defines the parameter or commits to keeping it. The AI Overviews page names the Web filter and never mentions a URL. Google udm 14 is a working address rather than a supported setting, and that difference matters the day it changes.

Chrome, Edge and Opera: Which Ones Let You Save the URL

Chrome documents a form where you paste a search address and set it as your default, and Microsoft and Opera document no equivalent for Edge or Opera. Chrome calls the feature site search. Per Chrome's help page, open Settings, choose Search engine on the left, then Manage search engines and site search, then click Add next to Site search. Three fields appear, and Chrome names them exactly like this:

1. Search engine: a name you will recognise, such as Google Web.
2. Shortcut: a keyword, such as w.
3. URL with %s in place of query: paste https://www.google.com/search?q=%s&udm=14.

Save it, then click More next to the new entry and choose Make default. From then on every search you type in the address bar lands on web results, and your AI-free search costs you nothing per query. If you would rather keep normal Google as the default, skip Make default and type w plus a space first.

Edge is documented differently, and the difference decides what you can do with it. Microsoft's page for Edge describes discovery rather than a form. Its instruction is to "perform a search in the address bar using that search engine". The engine you used "will now appear in the list of options you can select." You find that list under Settings, then Privacy, search, and services, then Search and connected services, then Address bar and search. Discovery copies an engine as the site itself defines it, so a parameter you added is not part of the copy. Microsoft does publish Search engine, Keyword and URL fields on a second page, Change your default search engine. They sit under its Google Chrome heading rather than its Edge one.

Opera has the same gap. Opera's help documents one way to add an engine. Right-click (Ctrl + click on macOS) on a site's search bar, select "Create Search Engine…", then assign a name and keyword. That captures a site's own search box, so right-clicking Google's box gives you ordinary Google with the AI Overview still on it. Opera's help lists editing keywords and removing engines under Settings, Search engine, Manage Search Engine, and publishes no step for pasting an address of your own. On both browsers, that leaves the Web tab, or setting Chrome or Firefox up with the saved engine and searching from there.

Turn Off AI Overviews in Firefox

Firefox 140 and later can add a fully custom search engine without an add-on, which is new and is why older instructions send you to an extension. Mozilla's page states the version line outright: "Starting in Firefox version 140, you are able to add custom unsupported search engines in Firefox Settings." Open Settings, select Search, scroll to Additional search engines, and click Add search engine. Give it a name, paste https://www.google.com/search?q=%s&udm=14 into the URL box, add a keyword if you want one, then click Add Engine.

Set it as the default from the Default Search Engine dropdown on the same Search panel. Keeping normal Google as the default works too, and then the keyword does the job. Mozilla's shortcut guide has you click the pencil icon beside an engine under Additional search engines and type the word you want. The shortcut then shows up as a tile on your new tab page.

On Firefox 139 and earlier the Settings route does not exist, and Mozilla points you to an add-on to create the engine. Updating Firefox is the shorter path, and it also gets you the extensions covered further down.

Safari on Mac

Safari cannot use a custom search URL, so the address-bar method above has no Safari version. Apple's guide allows one action here: clear the Smart Search field and "Choose a search engine from the list", or switch in the Search pane of Safari settings. The list is fixed, and nothing on it accepts a parameter you supply.

That leaves Safari users three routes, in the order we would try them.

1. Click Web on the results page each time. It costs one click and it never breaks.
2. Install a Safari extension that hides the block, using the App Store route Apple describes for Safari extensions.
3. Change the engine to one that returns no AI answer, which is a bigger decision and belongs with our comparison of search engines without AI.

If your reason for being here is Apple's own AI features rather than Google's, the settings you want are in how to turn off Apple Intelligence.

Android

Chrome for Android cannot add a custom search engine, and no amount of digging changes that. The Android version of Chrome's help page offers one instruction, "Under 'Basics,' tap Search engine. Select the search engine you want to use," and notes only that "Your recently visited search engines are added as options." There is no URL field, so the udm=14 default that works on desktop Chrome is not available to you on an Android phone.

Firefox for Android can do it, which is the real Android answer. Tap the search engine icon in the address bar, tap Search settings, tap Default search engine, then tap Add search engine. Enter a name, and in the Search string URL field paste https://www.google.com/search?q=%s&udm=14. Mozilla's own example on that page is https://www.google.com/search?q=%s, so you are adding four characters to a pattern Mozilla already publishes. Save it, then set it as the default on the same screen.

Staying in Chrome on Android means tapping Web in the filter row after each search. If Web is not showing, scroll that row to the right, which is where Google's Android help puts the Search tools. Turning off the Google assistant layer is a separate job with its own settings, and we cover it in how to turn off Gemini on Android.

iPhone

An iPhone gives you the fewest options of any device here, because Safari is the browser Apple wires into everything and Safari takes no custom search URL. So the plain answer to "can I turn off AI Overview on my iPhone" is no. iPhone threads on this question tend to end without a fix.

Two things do work. Firefox for iOS accepts a custom engine. Tap the menu button, tap Settings, tap Search, then tap Add Search Engine. Enter a title and paste https://www.google.com/search?q=%s&udm=14 into the URL field. Mozilla documents the %s pattern on that Firefox for iOS page, with https://www.google.com/search?q=%s as its worked example. Set it as the default from the same Search screen and your iPhone searches stop drawing AI Overviews.

The second route keeps you in Safari. Apple lets you install content-blocking extensions from the App Store: in Safari, open the page menu, tap Manage Extensions, then Browse Extensions to search the store. Check what a given extension asks for before you install it, because hiding one block on google.com does not require read access to every site you visit.

Extensions and uBlock Origin Rules

Extensions do not stop an AI Overview being generated. They hide it with Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) once the page has drawn. The best-known one on the Chrome Web Store is Bye Bye, Google AI, at 100,000 users and 4.3 stars from 553 ratings. That listing showed version 2.12 on 5 June 2026. Its own listing describes the mechanism plainly: "It simply uses CSS to set those areas of the page to be hidden (display="none")." The same listing states the limit: "Note that, if Google changes its CSS, we'll have to update the extension to keep pace."

Firefox has two worth knowing. Hide Google AI Overviews has 48,036 users and 3.5 stars, and its source sits in a public GitHub repository, so you can read what it does before installing it. The &udm=14 add-on has 10,339 users and takes the other approach, adding the parameter to your searches rather than hiding anything after the fact. Both are listed as working on Firefox for Android. Watch the names when you search a store. Several near-identical titles exist, and one duplicate listing for Hide Google AI Overviews has four users rather than 48,036. Sort by user count and open the listing itself before you install.

uBlock Origin can do the same job without a single-purpose extension, and its element picker writes the rule for you.

1. Open the uBlock Origin popup and click the eye-dropper icon.
2. Click the AI Overview block on the results page.
3. Drag the two sliders to widen or narrow what the filter catches, and preview it.
4. Click Create.

Use the picker rather than hand-writing a selector. Google's class names are generated, so a rule you typed yourself will fail silently the next time they change.

What to Do When udm=14 Stops Working

Every method except the Web tab has broken for a large group of users at least once. The clearest record of it sits on the Hide Google AI Overviews listing. That listing opens with a note to users: "April Update: We are aware the extension no longer functions as of late March. We have updated the add-on and are awaiting an add-on update review from Mozilla!" The cost shows up in the ratings, where 77 of its 251 reviews are one star. An undocumented parameter and a CSS selector both depend on Google's markup staying still, and Google has no reason to hold it still.

Work through four steps in this order when your setup stops working.

1. Click Web on the results page. It is the one route Google documents, so it survives changes that break everything else, and it tells you within a second whether the web-only view still exists.
2. Re-check the extension's store listing for an update, then check its code repository. Fixes usually land in the repository days before a store review clears, and both Hide Google AI Overviews and Bye Bye, Google AI ship that way.
3. If udm=14 returns an ordinary results page with an AI Overview on it, the number has moved rather than the feature. Load the Web tab once by hand, copy the URL out of the address bar, and read the current udm value from it.
4. Update the saved search engine in your browser with that value, using the same field you filled in earlier. That is a ten-second edit and does not need a reinstall.

If a step above fails twice in a month, the parameter has stopped being worth maintaining and switching engines is the cheaper move.

Who This Is Not For

None of this suits anyone on a managed work device. If your employer runs Chrome under policy, the site search fields and the extension store are usually locked. Clicking Web after each search is then the only method left to you. Asking whoever administers the fleet to allow one extension is a faster fix than fighting the settings. The same goes for a school Chromebook.

It also does not suit readers who want AI out of the whole browser rather than out of one results page. Hiding an AI Overview leaves the AI features built into the browser itself untouched, and those need their own settings. Start with browsers without AI. The same problem on a Windows desktop is how to turn off Copilot on Windows, and on a Samsung phone it is how to turn off Galaxy AI. The social-app version is how to turn off Meta AI. The summaries you are hiding here are the same material we describe in our guide to AI slop.

Two things would change our answer. If Google adds an account-level setting for AI Overviews, the custom search engine step stops being needed and we would send you to the setting instead. If Google makes the Web filter sticky, so that choosing it once keeps later searches on web results, the parameter becomes unnecessary as well. Neither appears anywhere in Google's published help as of 2 September 2026, and the current page still says the feature cannot be turned off.

Verdict

Treat the Web tab as the reliable method and the saved search engine as the convenience layer on top of it. The tab is documented, works on every platform including Safari and Chrome for Android, and costs one click. The saved engine costs two minutes once and nothing after that. It also survives a busy day, because you stop using any method you have to remember in the middle of a search. Extensions sit last. They cover the case where you cannot change the search URL, and they are the first to break.

If you do one thing to turn off AI Overviews, make it the Chrome step. Open Chrome settings, add https://www.google.com/search?q=%s&udm=14 as a site search, and click Make default.