Google’s AI Overviews are supposed to make search faster and smarter. For many people they’re the opposite: noisy, occasionally wrong, and a middleman between you and the original webpage. If you want them gone from a search session, there’s a surprisingly simple keyboard hack that lets you zap the summaries in most desktop searches.
Type an en dash followed by letters or numbers at the end of your query – for example, -ai – and Google will remove the AI Overview from the results. The en dash operator is meant to exclude whatever topic you attach to it, and in practice it seems to suppress the generative summary completely. Variations like -1 or -z work the same way.
That trick appears to be limited mostly to searches done in desktop browsers. On iOS, Google’s web guide and AI sidebar still show up in the Chrome and Safari apps, though a Classic Search button can sometimes toggle them off. On at least one Pixel phone the -ai appendage removed AI Overviews as well. If the en dash feels fiddly, hitting the Web tab (sometimes hidden under More) is another route to the plain links-only view.
This workaround is small but revealing. Google rolled out AI Overviews in 2024 and has repeatedly leaned into generative tools since. The company argues the feature makes Search more helpful and increases return visits, a point a Google spokesperson emphasized when discussing the newcomers to search. At the same time, AI summaries have had notable hiccups – the infamously bad suggestion about baking pizza with glue is one of the more viral examples – which keeps a subset of users wary.
Users aren’t entirely powerless. Privacy-focused competitors such as DuckDuckGo and Brave let you toggle AI summaries off in settings, and you can switch your default search engine in Chrome without changing browsers. More broadly, search has long supported operators (site:, -, quotes) that let people tailor results; the en dash trick is just a modern addition to that toolbox.
Still, this is where the tug-of-war between control and convenience shows up. Google buries options for a links-only experience – the company notes the ’web’ filter exists but says people rarely use it – then layers generative answers on by default. That design favors a curated, Google-controlled result over letting users define the default themselves.
Practical takeaway: if you prefer the old ”ten blue links” ritual, add -ai (or another en dash plus token) to your query on desktop and keep hitting the Web tab. You might end up treating that keystroke like an extra search term – the digital equivalent of typing ”Reddit” to get forum results. If you want a permanent fix, try a search engine that exposes the toggle in settings.
What’s next? Expect one of three outcomes. Google may patch this loophole if the en dash becomes a widely circulated way to opt out. It may add an official, user-facing toggle if enough people complain. Or it will leave things as is, nudging users toward the generative layer because it fits the company’s broader product strategy. My money is on incremental fiddling rather than wholesale rollback: companies rarely remove default features that increase engagement – even when a keyboard trick shows how little control users actually have.