Did You Know: Using Swear Words In Google Search Disables The AI Function
Even AIs have feelings now.
By Syazwan Bahri — 03 Feb 2025, 04:56 PM
Google's AI Overview is a pretty helpful tool when it comes to quickly understanding your search queries
Google's AI Overview is a fairly new search feature that uses artificial intelligence to provide summarised answers to your questions right on the search results page. It works by gathering information from mutliple websites and highlighting key information without needing to click through all the search results.
However, users found out that using curse words in the search engine disables the AI Overview
Recent reports and social media discussions suggest that including profanity in your search query can prevent the AI Overview from appearing in the results. This has been tested and confirmed by several sources, including Ars Technica.
When searching for "how do you turn off [adjective] Google AI results", using certain profane adjectives consistently prevented AI Overviews from appearing. In contrast, milder terms like "dumb" or "lousy" did not have the same effect. Likewise, randomly inserting curse words anywhere in the search query appeared to yield similar results.
It turns out there are a few ways to disable Google's AI Overviews without resorting to offensive language
Early on, users discovered that adding "&udm=14" to the end of a search URL would remove both the AI Overviews and Web Snippets. Some tech-savvy users even found ways to automate this by changing browser settings or using plug-ins, so this parameter is automatically added to every search.
More recently, another method has surfaced: simply adding "-ai" to the end of your search query (without quotes) seems to do the trick as well. Interestingly, adding any text string after a minus sign at the end of a search also seems to disable the AI Overview, for reasons unknown.
These workarounds provide alternative options for users who prefer not to see AI Overviews in their search results, giving them more control over their search experience.
