How to turn off AI in your Google Docs

This happened to me: I opened a Google Doc to write an article and was immediately confronted with a text box inviting me to “Write with Gemini.” I looked for a button to remove the fancy AI display, but couldn’t find it. It drove me crazy.

Now, instead of writing the article I should be working on, I’m writing about how to remove AI popups from your Google Docs screen because it took me a while to figure out. You are welcome.

The first fix is ​​pretty simple:

• Click on “Twins” in the top menu bar above your document.
• Select “bottom panel preferences” in the drop-down menu.
• You can choose to turn off that bottom bar, which will get rid of the AI ​​box at the bottom of your screen.

Full disclosure: I was so mad when I set out to find the “bottom bar options” that I completely missed it at first. Instead, I clicked the Ask Something Else button and asked Gemini to help me out of my life. The AI ​​may not be human, but Gemini had some sort of survival instinct as it told me to hit the “X”. It doesn’t eliminate Gemini. He just hung up, I asked him how to turn himself off. Suspicious!

Other affected Google Docs users have reported features that I haven’t yet encountered, such as a “Help me write” function hovers over your cursor as you work. It seems like something that would piss me off, so it’s probably worth nipping it in the bud before it’s too late. Benjamin Franklin he once said“An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” (He was talking about fire safety. I’m talking about product design.)

Instead of turning off each individual AI feature like a game of whac-o-mole, we can disable “smart features” in our Google workspace through Gmail.

• First, go to your Gmail inbox.
• From there, find the gear for Settings and click on it.
• Next, click the “View all settings” button at the top of the menu. (But while you’re at it, you should pick a fun theme for your inbox. Wouldn’t a little whimsy kill you?)

• After clicking “See all settings,” scroll about halfway down the page to find “Google Workspace smart features,” then click “Manage Workspace smart feature settings.”

• Here you are presented with two options: one that allows you to disable smart features in Google Workspace (like the annoying Gemini pop-ups in Google Docs) and the other is for smart features (which I personally find less annoying). I only disabled the first option, but if for some reason you hate Gmail automatically creating calendar events for your flights, you can fix that.

Now you should be safe from those pesky Gemini pop-ups interrupting your writing process in Google Docs. You can rest easy.