This Chrome Extension Hides Junk From Google’s AI
It’s hard to avoid artificial intelligence these days. Apple just made Apple Intelligence opt-out , and Google Workspace users are now seeing large, hard-to-remove Gemini buttons in all their apps. The world’s biggest tech companies are doing their best to convince you of the future of generative AI, but even if you can’t turn off AI, there are steps you can take to fight back.
Even outside of Workspace, Google is one of the most blatant proponents of artificial intelligence. The company tried to implement its Gemini artificial intelligence into almost all of its properties, although search results included inaccurate recommendations that recommended everything from eating rocks to adding glue to pizza . Even if you ‘re not interested in AI search results , you’ll still see Google Gemini items in Gmail and other web apps. If that bothers you, don’t worry—you can use Hide Gemini , a Chrome extension that hides Google Gemini items from various Google sites, to pretend you’re living in the good old days of 2020.
Hide Gemini removes the “Ask Gemini” button from Gmail and uses CSS to hide other egregious Gemini elements on various Google sites, even the dreaded “AI Browse” window. Once you install it, the extension will start working immediately. When using these types of extensions, there are sometimes concerns that they may negatively impact the functionality of your service. An extension that blocks one element can sometimes inadvertently prevent you from accessing other important features. Luckily, there are no such side effects associated with Hide Gemini. Since it uses CSS blocking, it simply hides unwanted AI elements without affecting other features.
Please note that this extension, like AI, is not magic. It only hides permanent AI elements (such as the aforementioned “Ask Gemini” button), but not temporary advertising elements. If you’ve never used Gemini, you may see a “Try Gemini” button that this extension doesn’t hide. The developer says this is done to avoid compatibility issues. Likewise, it doesn’t block the “Help Me Write” prompt that might appear in Google Docs while you’re working on a document. These minor limitations seem reasonable to me, and I’m happy to recommend Hide Gemini. This makes Google’s products far less tedious to use, even if it doesn’t so much block the AI itself as make it invisible.