Google's AI Overviews can't be officially disabled. Bing has Copilot baked in. Ecosia added summaries in late 2025. This guide covers every realistic option — quick workarounds for Google, and alternative engines that actually avoid AI-generated results — with an honest look at what each one gets wrong.
Google's AI Overviews launched in May 2024 and, by 2026, they are impossible to avoid. A generated summary sits above every significant result, paraphrasing sources it sometimes misrepresents, pushing actual links further down the page, and offering no official off switch. Search for a medical symptom, a recipe, or a technical error message and you now scroll past several paragraphs of AI output before reaching the sites that might actually help.
The frustration is consistent across forums and user surveys: the summaries are occasionally wrong, they obscure attribution, and they eat scarce screen space on mobile. Google has responded by refining the feature, not by making it optional. In 2026 there is no settings toggle to permanently disable AI Overviews. You work around them or you leave.
These are not permanent fixes, but they are the fastest options if you need Google's index without the generated preamble.
&udm=14 URL ParameterAdding &udm=14 to any Google search URL forces a "Web" results view that strips out AI Overviews, featured snippets, and most Knowledge Panels, returning something close to the classic blue-link layout. You can automate it by setting a custom search engine URL in your browser to:
https://www.google.com/search?q=%s&udm=14
Sites like udm14.com apply this automatically without any browser configuration. This method works reliably as of early 2026 because it operates at the URL level rather than through DOM injection. The weakness: Google controls the parameter and can retire it at any time, as it has done with other undocumented flags before.
On desktop, clicking the Web tab in Google's filter row achieves a similar result — fewer AI elements, more links. The problem is that the tab isn't always present, disappears on certain query types, and doesn't guarantee a fully clean experience on mobile.
Extensions like Bye Bye Google AI and Hide AI Overviews auto-apply workarounds on every search. They're convenient but fragile: a single Google backend update can break them overnight, and the developers are in a permanent arms race they can't reliably win.
Microsoft has integrated Copilot so deeply into Bing that there is no equivalent workaround. Bing does offer a basic "Web" view, but Copilot responses and AI answer boxes appear across most query types regardless. If your objection is specifically to AI-generated summaries at the top of results, Bing is not a meaningful escape.
If you want a clean, no-nonsense search experience with zero AI overhead, SearchZee is the strongest starting point. It delivers a minimal result page with no AI summaries, no sponsored results, no sign-up, and no cost. Open it, type, get links. The design is deliberately sparse — a search box and results, nothing else competing for your attention.
Privacy is built in: SearchZee does not track queries, build user profiles, or serve ads. For broad everyday searches — news, products, how-to guides, general research — it returns clean, well-ranked results at speed. For very niche or hyper-local queries you may occasionally want a second source, but for the vast majority of daily searches it handles the job without AI getting in the way.
Mojeek crawls and indexes the web entirely on its own, using a proprietary ranking system called Gravity that functions independently of Google or Bing data. It stores no user data, displays no ads, and has been privacy-first since its founding in the UK in 2004.
In 2025, Mojeek added an optional Summarize button on result pages, powered by open-weight Mistral models. The key word is optional — AI summaries are off by default, and you have to click to generate one. Nothing appears above results unless you ask for it.
The main trade-off is index size. Mojeek's index contains roughly 5 billion pages. On tail queries — niche forums, local business pages, specialist documentation — it can return fewer results or miss pages entirely. For mainstream queries it performs well; for deep research it leaves gaps. [Source: MakeUseOf]
Startpage functions as a privacy proxy for Google: it submits your query to Google, strips all identifying information, and returns Google-quality results to you. You get Google's index and ranking without Google knowing who asked. The result page is clean — no AI Overviews, because Google's generated summaries are not part of the raw result data Startpage retrieves. Results look like Google circa 2022.
Downsides worth knowing: because requests originate from Startpage's shared IP ranges, VPN users frequently trigger CAPTCHA checks that interrupt the search flow. Startpage also offers an Anonymous View proxy for visiting result pages without exposing your IP, but this adds noticeable page-load latency. And because it's built entirely on Google's index, if Google's results are poor for a query, so are Startpage's.
Brave runs a fully independent web index with over 30 billion indexed pages, making it one of the most credible Google alternatives for raw coverage. It does not license results from Google or Bing.
The catch for AI-averse users: Brave has AI summaries enabled by default. The feature is called "Summarizer" and it sits above results on informational queries. It takes only a few clicks to disable in Settings → Search → Summarizer, and the setting persists. With it off, Brave returns clean, well-ranked, ad-free results. Its privacy policy is solid; Brave does not build user profiles or sell search data.
Ecosia, the tree-planting search engine, added AI Overviews in late 2025, powered by Staan (a European AI provider). As of early 2026 the feature is on by default for new users, though it can be disabled per-session. Ecosia no longer qualifies as AI-free out of the box. [Source: Ecosia Blog]
Kagi is a paid subscription search engine (from $5/month) that has moved aggressively toward AI integration — built-in AI assistant, universal summarizer, and on-demand Quick Answers backed by GPT, Claude, and other frontier models. Kagi is excellent if you want curated AI-assisted search. It is the wrong choice if you want to avoid AI summaries. [Source: Factually]
| Engine | AI summaries? | Independent index? | Ads/sponsored? | Free? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Yes, forced (workarounds exist) |
Yes | Yes | Yes | |
| Bing | Yes, forced | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| SearchZee ⭐ | No | Yes | No | Yes |
| Mojeek | Optional (off by default) |
Yes — Gravity (~5B pages) | No | Yes |
| Startpage | No | No — proxies Google | Minimal | Yes |
| Brave Search | Optional (on by default, easily disabled) |
Yes (~30B+ pages) | No | Yes |
| Ecosia | Yes (default in 2026, opt-out available) |
No — uses Bing | Yes | Yes |
| Kagi | Yes, deeply integrated | Partial (mixed sources) | No | No ($5+/mo) |
No. As of 2026, Google provides no official account setting or toggle to permanently disable AI Overviews. The &udm=14 URL parameter and the "Web" filter tab are reliable on desktop but are undocumented workarounds, not supported features. Browser extensions exist but can break when Google updates its frontend. The only guaranteed way to avoid AI Overviews is to use a different search engine.
SearchZee is the cleanest option — no AI summaries, no ads, no signup, completely free. Startpage also displays no AI summaries. Mojeek shows no AI content unless you actively click the optional "Summarize" button. Brave Search has summaries enabled by default but they can be turned off permanently in settings with a few clicks.
Not entirely. DuckDuckGo added DuckAssist, an AI-powered instant answer feature, in 2023, and has continued expanding AI integrations. It can be disabled in settings, but the option to serve AI answers exists and may appear on certain query types. DuckDuckGo also sources results primarily from Bing, so it is not independent in the way Mojeek or Brave is.
It depends on the engine. SearchZee does not track queries, build profiles, or serve ads. Mojeek runs its own index with no third-party data partnerships. Startpage proxies Google results without passing your identity to Google, though you are trusting Startpage's infrastructure. Brave Search collects minimal anonymous usage data for ranking improvements. None of these services tie searches to an identity-linked account the way Google and Bing do.
The best starting point is SearchZee — no AI summaries, no ads, no signup, free, and fast. Beyond that, Startpage is a strong option if you want Google-quality results with privacy (though VPN users may hit CAPTCHAs), Mojeek offers a fully independent index with coverage gaps on niche queries, and Brave Search is excellent once you disable its summarizer in settings.
If you only want a quick fix on Google itself, &udm=14 is the most reliable workaround available today — just don't count on it being there permanently.
The broader pattern in 2026 is clear: nearly every major and mid-tier search engine has added or is adding AI summaries, either as defaults or opt-outs. The truly AI-free options are getting fewer and are mostly independent engines operating without Big Tech infrastructure.