The Invasion of Gemini

I'm obviously no stranger to AI. I've been writing about it for a while - mostly about the ways it can benefit teachers and students, but also about the dangers of misuse. One thing I haven't yet covered is...what do you do when you are just bombarded with AI in every single application you try to use?? I can't necessarily help with everything, but I can solve one problem!

Recently, Google started embedding Gemini into Google Docs (important note - this is just for users 18+, so students do not see it any of these integrations). So now when you open a new Doc, you get a bar at the bottom:

Could this be helpful to you? Sure. But for me...I don't want it. If I want to use AI for something, I want to seek out help in my own separate tab. Leave me and my document alone, please. If you are feeling the same way...you can remove it! Go up to the "Gemini" menu at the top, then to "Bottom bar preferences", and then "Turn off":

I expect to see similar features in other Google applications as time goes on, so always make sure to hunt around to figure out how you can disable or hide any features that you don't want to see!