Over the past year, artificial intelligence has infiltrated nearly every aspect of our digital lives. From chatbots and writing assistants to image generators and video creators, AI is everywhere. One area where its presence has become particularly noticeable—and for many, unwelcome—is in web search results. Major search engines like Google, Bing, and DuckDuckGo have integrated AI-generated summaries, overviews, and answers directly into their results pages. While some users appreciate the convenience of instant answers, others find these AI intrusions distracting, inaccurate, and detrimental to the quality of their search experience.

Fortunately, there is a straightforward way to automatically exclude AI results from your searches, and it works in nearly every major web browser. By adding a custom search engine with a special parameter, you can instruct Google to return only traditional web results, completely bypassing AI Overviews. This method requires no additional software, no browser extensions (with the exception of Safari), and no complicated settings changes. In this guide, we will walk you through the process step by step for Chrome, Firefox, Edge, and Safari.

Why You Might Want to Remove AI from Search

Before diving into the technical steps, it is worth understanding why someone would want to strip AI from their search results. There are several compelling reasons, ranging from environmental concerns to reliability issues.

Environmental Impact: AI models require enormous amounts of computational power. Every time you issue a search query that triggers an AI response, data centers consume significant electricity and water for cooling. According to recent studies, a single AI-powered search can consume up to ten times more energy than a traditional search. As data centers proliferate, their water usage—often drawn from local freshwater sources—has raised alarms in drought-prone regions. By opting out of AI results, you reduce your carbon and water footprint.

Accuracy Issues: AI language models are known to produce confident-sounding but incorrect information, a phenomenon often called hallucination. Many users have reported Google AI Overviews providing outdated, contradictory, or flat-out wrong answers. In a test with several Linux troubleshooting queries, for instance, AI-generated results consistently contained errors that a simple web search would have corrected. Trusting AI answers without verification can lead to poor decisions or wasted time.

User Control and Privacy: AI summaries often pull content from third-party websites without clear attribution, reducing traffic to those sites. As a user, you may prefer to see the original sources and decide for yourself which information is credible. Additionally, AI systems may track your queries more extensively to personalize responses, raising privacy concerns.

For these reasons, many people are looking for ways to disable AI in their search engines. While some search engines allow you to toggle AI features off, Google does not provide a straightforward setting to disable AI Overviews. This is where the custom search engine trick comes in.

Understanding the Magic URL Parameter

The key to this method is a hidden URL parameter that Google itself provides. When you append &udm=14 to a standard Google search URL, the search engine returns results in its traditional "Web" tab format, completely free of AI Overviews, knowledge panels, and other machine-generated content. The udm parameter stands for "User Defined Mode" and the value 14 corresponds to the classic web-only view.

The full URL that you will use is: https://www.google.com/search?q=%s&udm=14

Here, %s is a placeholder that the browser will replace with your search query. By saving this URL as a custom search engine, every search you perform through that shortcut will automatically include the udm=14 parameter, bypassing AI results.

This parameter has been tested and confirmed to work as of early 2026. Google has not officially documented it, but it remains functional across all regions and languages. Should Google ever change or remove this parameter, the custom search engine approach would still allow you to use alternative search engines that do not rely on AI, such as DuckDuckGo or Kagi.

Step-by-Step Instructions for Every Major Browser

Below are detailed, browser-specific instructions to set up a custom search engine that excludes AI results. All examples use Google as the underlying search engine.

Firefox (Desktop and Mobile)

Firefox makes it easy to add custom search engines. However, you cannot edit the default Google entry directly. Instead, you create a new one.

1. Open Firefox and go to Settings (or Preferences on macOS).
2. In the left sidebar, click Search.
3. Scroll down to the Search Shortcuts section and click the Add button at the bottom of the list.
4. In the pop-up window, fill in the following:
- Search Engine Name: AI-Free Google
- URL: https://www.google.com/search?q=%s&udm=14
- Keyword: aig (or any short keyword you prefer)
5. Click Add Engine.
6. To use it, type your keyword (e.g., aig) in the address bar, press the Tab key, type your search query, and press Enter.

Firefox will now perform the search using your custom engine. You can also set this as your default search engine if you wish—just edit the shortcut and select it as default. However, note that Firefox may not allow changing the default for built-in engines; using the keyword method is the simplest approach.

Google Chrome (Desktop and Android)

Chrome's search engine management is straightforward.

1. Open Chrome and click the three-dot menu in the top-right corner, then select Settings.
2. In the left menu, click Search engine.
3. Under Search engines, click Manage search engines and site search.
4. In the Site search section, click Add.
5. Enter the following details:
- Name: AI-Less Google
- Shortcut: aig
- URL: https://www.google.com/search?q=%s&udm=14
6. Click Add.
7. Now, type aig in the address bar, press Tab, enter your query, and hit Enter.

On Android, the process is similar but the interface may be slightly different. Open Chrome, go to Settings > Search engine > Manage search engines, and add the custom entry as above. Note that on mobile, you may need to use the keyword in the address bar or set the custom engine as default for quick searching.

Microsoft Edge (Desktop)

Edge, being built on Chromium, behaves nearly identically to Chrome.

1. Click the three-dot menu (Settings and more) and go to Settings.
2. Go to Privacy, search, and services > Address bar and search.
3. Under Search engines, click Manage search engines.
4. Click Add.
5. Enter:
- Search engine: AI-Free Edge
- Keyword: aig
- URL: https://www.google.com/search?q=%s&udm=14
6. Click Add and then make sure it appears in the list. You may optionally set it as default.

Usage is the same: type the keyword, press Tab, then query.

Safari (macOS and iOS)

Safari is the only browser that does not natively support custom search engines with URL parameters. To achieve the same effect, you must install a free extension from the App Store called Customize Search Engine.

1. Open the Mac App Store or iOS App Store and search for "Customize Search Engine." Install the extension.
2. Once installed, open the extension's settings (found in System Preferences > Extensions > Safari Extensions, or directly via the app).
3. In the extension, replace the default search URL with: https://www.google.com/search?q=%s&udm=14
4. Save the changes.
5. Now, whenever you use the address bar to search, the extension will automatically append the parameter, resulting in AI-free results.

On iOS, the same extension works, but you must ensure it is enabled in Safari settings under Extensions. Note that this extension intercepts all searches, so you do not need to remember a special keyword. However, if you prefer to keep the default Google behavior for some searches, you may want to install a separate browser like Firefox or Chrome for the custom engine.

Additional Considerations and Alternatives

While the udm=14 parameter works reliably as of now, readers should be aware that Google may eventually deprecate or remove it. In that case, you can still replicate the effect by using alternative search engines that do not rely on AI. DuckDuckGo, for example, offers a non-AI experience by default, though it has recently introduced optional AI features that must be manually enabled. Kagi is a paid search engine that emphasizes privacy and has no AI Overviews. Startpage.com also delivers Google results without tracking or AI summaries. Each of these can be added as a custom search engine using the same browser methods described above.

Additionally, if you prefer to keep using Google but want to avoid AI Overviews on a one-off basis, you can manually click the "Web" tab after performing a search. The custom search engine method simply automates this step, saving you a click every time.

It is also worth noting that some users have reported that the &udm=14 parameter also removes other rich snippets, such as featured snippets and image carousels. For many, this is a welcome side effect, as it returns to a cleaner, text-heavy results page. If you specifically need AI Overviews for certain queries—like when asking for a quick definition or a summary—you can always perform a standard Google search by temporarily using the default search engine.

Finally, remember that this approach only works for searches initiated through the browser's address bar. If you navigate directly to google.com and type a query into the search box, the parameter will not be applied. To ensure consistency, always use the custom search engine shortcut from the address bar.

By following these instructions, you can take control of your search experience and avoid the growing presence of AI in search results. Whether driven by concerns over environmental impact, accuracy, or simply a preference for traditional web results, this method provides a clean, effective solution that works across almost every browser. As AI continues to evolve, maintaining user agency over how we access information remains essential.

Source: ZDNET News