It happened to me: I opened a Google Doc to write an article and was immediately confronted with a text box inviting me to “write with Gemini.” I looked for a button to remove the fancy AI screen but couldn’t find it. They were driving me crazy.
Now, instead of writing the article I’m supposed to be working on, I’m writing about how to remove AI pop-ups from the Google Docs screen, as it took me a while to figure it out. You are welcome.
The first fix is pretty simple:
- Click on “Gemini” in the top menu bar above your document.
- In the drop-down menu, select “bottom line preferences”.
- You can choose to turn this bottom bar off, which will get rid of that AI box at the bottom of your screen.
Full disclosure: I was so enraged when I started finding the “bottom line preferences” that I initially missed it completely. Instead, I clicked “Ask Something Else” and asked Gemini to help me get out of my life. The AI may not be human, but Gemini seemed to have some survival instincts because it told me to click the “X” icon. This does not remove Gemini. It just closed the thread, the one where I was asking how to disable it. Suspect!
Other affected Google Docs users have reported features I have yet to encounter, such as a “help me write” feature. that hovers over the cursor while you work. This seems like something that would upset me, so it’s probably worth biting the bullet before it’s too late. Benjamin Franklin he once said“An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” (He was talking about fire safety. I’m talking about product design.)
Instead of turning off every single AI feature like a game of whac-o-mole, we can turn off “smart features” in our Google Workplace through Gmail.
- First, go to your Gmail inbox.
- From there, find the gear icon for Settings and click on it.
- Then, at the top of the menu, click “See all settings.” (But while you’re at it, you should pick a fun theme for your inbox. Wouldn’t a little whimsy kill you?)
- After you click “Show all settings,” scroll about halfway down the page to find “Google Workspace smart features,” then click “Manage Workspace smart features settings.”
- Here, you have two options: one that lets you disable smart features in Google Workspace (like those pesky Gemini popups in Google Docs), and one that applies to other smart features (which I personally find less annoying). I only disabled the first option, but if for some reason you hate it when Gmail automatically creates calendar events for your flights, here’s how to fix it.
You should now be safe from annoying Gemini pop-ups interrupting the writing process in Google Docs. You can rest easy.
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