How to Disable (or Avoid) LinkedIn’s AI Features
Like it or not, LinkedIn is still one of the best ways to find jobs online . But as of 2023, the site has been experimenting with generative AI , allowing you to get AI help finding new jobs, writing messages, communicating with others, and creating your profile and job descriptions. Some users even see AI suggestions that appear under each message . While this AI integration looks useful, it can quickly become intrusive, as evidenced by comments asking how to disable AI on LinkedIn under posts promoting it. If you prefer to keep your online recruiting and job search as human-powered as possible, here’s a quick overview of LinkedIn’s AI features and the ones you can turn off.
Wait, why isn’t there AI on my LinkedIn?
LinkedIn’s AI integration is pretty ubiquitous on the site, but there’s one catch: it’s intended for premium users. This means that users of the free version won’t have to lift a finger if they want to skip AI on LinkedIn. They’ll still see ads from time to time that recommend purchasing Premium to access a certain AI feature, but Premium ads are nothing new to LinkedIn.
If you pay for Premium, your AI integration will be a little harder to ignore—LinkedIn considers it part of your subscription, so it won’t want you to turn off those paid features.
LinkedIn currently uses AI on career pages, in its recruiter tools, below posts, and in most text fields. Some, but not all, of these can be turned off, and what’s even more annoying is that the AI features you have access to vary depending on the Premium level.
Where does LinkedIn use artificial intelligence?
There are four areas where LinkedIn AI integration is most common. The first is in job listings.
Thanks to the Premium career tier, which I signed up for a free trial at the time of writing this article, job listings will now show LinkedIn AI chatbot prompts below the job description. These include questions such as “Am I the right person for this job?” and “How can I best prepare for this job?” The responses to these typically read like a summary of your job profile or job description, and “Tell me more about [employer]” basically sums up the company’s LinkedIn page.
The second is on LinkedIn Recruiter, where users can search for candidates using AI, get help filling out fields in projects, and send messages using AI . These features require an enterprise-level LinkedIn Recruiter subscription, so I was unable to test them for this article. Please note that Recruiter Lite LinkedIn Premium does not have access to these tools.
Premium users will also find AI in most LinkedIn text fields, as well as on their profile. Here, LinkedIn will offer help in composing your messages, posts, your profile title, or your description pages. An odd feature: Sales Navigator Core and Recruiter Lite, despite being more expensive than the Career and Business tiers, do not have access to AI message drafts.
Perhaps the most notable of LinkedIn’s AI features is its “AI inferences on feed posts.” Sometimes they will appear next to glitter icons when viewing your feed and suggest questions related to the post. Clicking on them will open LinkedIn’s AI chatbot and ask you a question.
How to disable LinkedIn AI
The bad news is that most of LinkedIn’s AI features can’t be turned off, so it’s best to sign up for the Premium tier with only the features you need. A short list of available AI features is visible upon registration. Once you’ve signed up, you can double-check which AI features you have access to by clicking the “View your premium features” tab in the top left corner of the site.
However, there are a few steps you can take to make AI less prevalent in your feed. The most direct way to disable LinkedIn AI is in the LinkedIn Recruiter, where the ability to send messages using AI can be disabled at both the admin and workplace levels.
To disable AI messaging in LinkedIn Recruiter admin tools, hover over your profile on the Recruiter home page and click Product Settings . Go to Company Settings > Settings in the left pane and click Edit under Enable AI-powered auto-composition . Turn off AI Messages and tap Save .
To disable AI messaging at the recruiter location level, hover over your profile on the recruiter home page, select Product Settings from the drop-down menu, then click Messages under My Account Settings in the left pane. Click Edit under Enable automatic drawing creation with AI , disable this feature, and click Save .
All other users can easily ignore LinkedIn messages using artificial intelligence, even if they cannot turn them off completely. This is because AI messages are currently only visible when you click the “Message” button in either the “Meet the Hiring Team” section of a careers page or in the introductory section of another user’s profile. Messages sent through the Messages window in the lower right corner will not display the “Compose with AI” prompt.
Unfortunately, there’s no way to prevent the “Compose with AI” prompt from appearing when you write a new message or edit your profile, so it’s important to know what it looks like so you don’t accidentally click on it.
When you edit the Title or About section of your profile, a “Write with AI” box will appear below the text field with a gold glitter next to it and a “Premium” tag to the right. Don’t click on it to avoid using the AI, but don’t worry if you accidentally click on it. If you don’t like what the AI has suggested, you can click the Cancel button to discard the changes or the Dislike button to mark the suggestion as bad.
It’s a little easier to ignore AI integration in LinkedIn messages, since the “Rewrite with AI” button will be grayed out until you’ve written a few lines of text. If you accidentally click on it, click the “Undo” button to get rid of the changes to the text. You will also still be able to give the AI rewrite either approval or approval .
What about AI suggestions in job listings or AI inferences from posts in your feed? The best way to avoid them is to simply not sign up for Premium.