It happened again this morning. I searched for a simple recipe adjustment—how to keep cookies from spreading—and before I could see a single blog post from a baker I actually trust, a giant, pulsating box of text swallowed my screen. It was the "AI Overview." It told me to add more butter. Anyone who has ever spent five minutes in a kitchen knows that more fat usually makes cookies spread more, not less. This is exactly why I hate Google AI Overview right now. It isn't just a minor UI tweak; it’s a fundamental shift in how we access information, and frankly, it feels like the "Don't Be Evil" era is officially in the rearview mirror.
Search used to be a gateway. You’d type a query, and Google would give you a map. Now, Google wants to be the destination. By scraping the hard work of journalists, coders, and hobbyists, and then summarizing it in a dry, often-hallucinated paragraph, they’ve created a "zero-click" ecosystem that feels parasitic.
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The Great Erasing of the Open Web
When you say "I hate Google AI Overview," you’re usually talking about one of two things: the quality of the answer or the ethics of the delivery. Let’s talk about the delivery first. For twenty years, the "deal" was simple. Creators provide the content, and Google provides the traffic. That social contract is currently being shredded.
If you’re a small publisher, you’re watching your click-through rates plummet. Why would someone click your link when a LLM (Large Language Model) has already spit out a "good enough" summary of your five-day investigative piece? This isn't just about lost ad revenue for bloggers. It’s about the incentive to create. If the reward for expertise is having your work ingested by a machine that replaces you, people will stop sharing expertise. We’re headed toward an "Internet Dead Zone" where the only new content being produced is AI-generated sludge designed specifically to feed other AIs. It’s a literal Ouroboros.
Why the Hallucinations Are Dangerous
Google’s SGE (Search Generative Experience) has had some high-profile, hilarious, and terrifying blunders. We’ve all seen the screenshots. From suggesting people use non-toxic glue to keep cheese on pizza to recommending that people eat at least one small rock a day for minerals—these aren't just quirks. They are symptoms of how these models work. They don't know things. They predict the next likely word in a sequence based on a massive dataset.
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If a satirical Reddit thread from 2011 says eating rocks is a "life hack," the AI might find that statistically relevant enough to include in an overview.
The problem is the authority Google gives these boxes. They sit at the very top. They use a confident tone. For a professional researcher, it’s easy to spot the nonsense. But for a kid doing homework or someone looking for quick medical advice? The stakes are much higher. When I search for "symptoms of a stroke," I don't want a "summary" that might miss a nuance because it’s trying to be concise. I want the Mayo Clinic. I want the NHS. I want actual experts.
The Bloat is Real
My phone screen is only so big.
On a mobile device, the AI Overview frequently takes up 80% of the initial view. You have to scroll, and scroll, and scroll just to find the first organic result. It’s exhausting. It’s "bloatware" for the web. We spent years complaining about recipe blogs having too much "backstory" before getting to the ingredients, but at least those stories were written by humans. Now, we have to bypass a gray box of AI-generated text just to get to the "bloated" blog we were annoyed by last year.
It feels like we’ve traded quality for the illusion of speed.
Is There a Way Out?
If you're like me and find yourself thinking "I hate Google AI Overview" every time you open a browser, there are actually things you can do. You don't have to just take it.
- The "Web" Filter: Google actually added a "Web" tab. It’s often hidden under the "More" menu, but it strips away the AI, the shopping carousels, and the snippets, leaving you with just... links. It’s like a time machine to 2012.
- Alternative Search Engines: DuckDuckGo and Brave Search have been gaining ground for a reason. They are leaning into the "privacy and simplicity" angle that Google abandoned.
- Browser Extensions: There are already "Hide Google AI Overview" extensions for Chrome and Firefox. It’s a bit of a cat-and-mouse game, but they work.
- Direct Navigation: Go directly to the source. If you want tech news, go to The Verge or Ars Technica. If you want recipes, go to Serious Eats. Bookmark your favorites.
The Future of Search
Google is in a "Code Red" situation. They are terrified of Bing (OpenAI integration) and Perplexity. They feel they must do this to survive. But in their rush to compete with other AI companies, they are alienating the people who made them a verb in the first place: the users.
Honestly, the "Overview" feels like a product designed for shareholders, not for people. It demonstrates "AI leadership" on a quarterly earnings call, but in the hands of a person trying to find out if a specific plant is toxic to their cat, it’s a liability.
We need to be vocal. Feedback buttons exist for a reason. If the AI gives you a dangerous or stupid answer, report it. If you find yourself using other search engines, stay there. The only thing that will make Google refine or retract this feature is a drop in user engagement.
Actionable Steps to Take Right Now
- Toggle the "Web" tab on your next search to see the difference in result quality. It’s eye-opening how much "noise" is removed.
- Install a "uBlock Origin" filter or a dedicated extension to collapse the SGE (Search Generative Experience) div if you're on a desktop.
- Support original creators by clicking through to their sites, even if the AI gives you a summary. Your click is the only "vote" you have in the current web economy.
- Audit your search habits. If you find yourself clicking the "Overview" out of laziness, stop and ask if you're actually getting the full story or just a filtered, potentially inaccurate version of it.
The internet isn't broken yet, but the way we find things certainly is. Reclaiming your search experience starts with recognizing that the "top" result isn't necessarily the "best" result anymore. It’s just the one Google wants you to see so you don't leave their platform.