In personal Google accounts, the Gmail General settings include a Smart features toggle affecting AI features across Gmail, impacting spellcheck, grammar suggestions, autocorrect, smart compose, smart reply, and nudges.

The article cautions that opting out of AI features may come with losing useful functions and personalized experiences, highlighting a trade-off between privacy/control and convenience.

The piece notes potential changes over time, suggesting Google may revert some changes and acknowledges that some users may prefer other AI tools such as Claude, ChatGPT, or locally hosted options.

There is no official way to fully disable AI Overviews in Google Search; practical workarounds include adding “-ai” to queries to reduce AI Overviews, creating a Google Search web filter, or switching to a different search engine or browser for more control.

For Google Workspace (business) accounts, AI features are controlled by administrators, giving individual users limited ability to disable them.

Even after turning off smart features, AI Overviews may persist via Google Labs experiments; disabling AI experiments can reduce some Overviews, but removal is not guaranteed.

The piece emphasizes user choice and the current workaround landscape, noting the relationship between Gmail and Docs AI visibility and the potential broader impact of disabling features on other AI-powered Gmail functionalities.

To disable smart features: sign in to Gmail, go to Settings > See all settings, General, and toggle off both Smart features in Google Workspace and Smart features in other Google products.

Google outlines how to reduce or disable AI features across Google accounts as Gemini-powered tools become more embedded in Gmail, Docs, Drive, and other apps.

After turning off Smart features in Gmail, users should refresh Docs to remove the Gemini bar, audio button, and AI toolbar, while a Gemini button remains in the top-right corner.

Disabling Google Workspace smart features substantially reduces AI in Gmail, Drive, Docs, Sheets, and Slides, but does not remove Gemini icons and also removes conveniences like direct Gmail-to-calendar pulls, priority sorting, and personalized search results.