Windows 11 is packed with AI now. Here’s how to take back control

Replace your PC’s Copilot key

Many new laptops now come with a Copilot key on the keyboard. Yet while you can’t change the logo that’s printed on your PC’s keycap, you can change what happens when you press the key.

If your PC has a Copilot key, you can head to Settings > Personalization > Text input to configure it. Click the “Customize Copilot key on your keyboard” option. For an AI-free experience, select “Search.” The key will then open the search experience in the Start menu.

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You could also select “Custom,” but Windows will only let you choose AI apps as custom options—for example, you could remap the Copilot key to launch ChatGPT. But if you’d like to have it perform any other non-search non-AI action, you’ll need to use the Keyboard Manager in Microsoft PowerToys or some other key remapping tool.

Remove Copilot from the system tray

Windows 11 includes two separate Copilots: one is “Copilot” and the other is “Microsoft 365 Copilot.” Confused? Yeah, you aren’t the only one. While Microsoft has business reasons for keeping them separate, the choice to include both in Windows as separate apps is still baffling. On many of my PCs, I’ve looked at the system tray and seen both Copilots happily running in the background, each with its own separate-but-similar system tray icon. That’s just silly.

If you don’t use Copilot, you can stop it from launching whenever you sign in to Windows like any other startup program. I prefer using the Task Manager to manage startup apps—launch the Task manager with Ctrl + Shift + Esc, then click “Startup apps” in the left pane. There you’ll find both “Copilot” and “Microsoft 365 Copilot.” Right-click one (or both) and select “Disable” to turn them off.

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If you don’t want to use Copilot at all, you can remove it from your PC entirely by opening the Start menu, searching for “Copilot,” right-clicking the “Copilot” result, and selecting “Uninstall.” You can uninstall Microsoft 365 Copilot in the same way. (If you want them back, both Copilot and Microsoft 365 Copilot are available in the Microsoft Store.)

Learn more about speeding up your Windows PC’s startup time by adjusting startup apps alongside many other tips!

Delete Copilot options from File Explorer

File Explorer now shows an “Ask Copilot” option when you right-click on files like Word documents, PDFs, and images. It’s a quick and convenient way to send files to Copilot… but what if you don’t want Copilot integrated into your right-click menu?

Well, if you simply uninstall Copilot, these context menu items will vanish. (Microsoft has fortunately made Copilot extremely easy to uninstall.) See the above tip about removing Copilot from your system tray for instructions on how to uninstall it.

If you’d rather keep Copilot installed but get rid of this option, there’s a registry hack that will block the Copilot shell extension.

Stop seeing Copilot in Microsoft Office

Microsoft 365 apps like Word, Excel, and PowerPoint now have Copilot integrated. With a standard Microsoft 365 subscription, you get a limited number of “AI credits” to spend each month.

Personally, I do a lot of writing in Word—I wrote this very article in Word—but I want to do the writing myself and have no interest in Copilot writing for me when I open a blank document. In fact, I’d rather get rid of the Copilot integration altogether so it doesn’t distract me.

Chris Hoffman / Foundry

To turn off Copilot in an Office app like Word, open the app, click File > Options, choose “Copilot” in the left pane, and then uncheck “Enable Copilot.” After you save your changes, it’ll vanish until you turn it back on.

Or, if you never use Copilot in Office apps, you can downgrade your Microsoft 365 plan and save $30 a year.

Hide Copilot in Notepad

Microsoft has gone as far as integrating Copilot into Notepad, allowing you to spend “AI credits” to do things like AI-generate text and summaries, complete with a Microsoft account sign-in system and a profile picture. It’s all a little much for Notepad.

Chris Hoffman / Foundry

Fortunately, it’s optional. In Notepad, you can click the Settings gear at the top-right corner of the window, scroll down, and turn off “Copilot” for a more traditional Notepad experience.

Microsoft doesn’t offer a way to turn off AI features in Paint or the Photos app, so it’s nice to see that Notepad has this user-friendly option.

Verify that Windows Recall is disabled

If you have a Copilot+ PC with all those built-in AI capabilities, Windows offers to turn on the Recall feature when you first set up your PC. It’s your choice, but it’s also easy to fly through that screen while you’re rushing the setup process. Maybe you turned it on by accident. (After all the controversy, we don’t recommend using Recall.)

Chris Hoffman / Foundry

The good news is, turning off Recall is easy now. If you’d like to verify that Recall is off, head to Settings > Privacy & security and click “Recall” under Windows permissions. (If you don’t see it, you don’t have a Copilot+ PC, so your computer doesn’t have Recall.)

If you’d rather not have Recall capture screenshots of your PC usage and store them for local AI searches, turn off “Save snapshots” here. You can also select “Delete snapshots” to delete any stored snapshots.

Turn off the Click To Do shortcut

In addition to Recall and those other AI features I’ve mentioned so far, Copilot+ PCs also have a feature called Click To Do, which presents contextual AI actions for the text and images you see on screen. Click To Do can be called up by using the Windows key + Q shortcut or by holding down the Windows key and left-clicking.

You can turn off Click To Do in Settings > Privacy & security > Click To Do. Click To Do doesn’t do anything unless you press this shortcut, but it’s easy to imagine that action getting in the way at times.

Turn off Windows Studio Effects

Copilot+ PCs have a feature called Windows Studio Effects, which is also available on some earlier AI PCs. It can perform real-time visual effects on your webcam image to make your skin look smoother and even fake eye contact so it appears you’re always looking at the camera. It also has silly AI effects that can, say, make you look like a cartoon character.

Chris Hoffman / Foundry

If you’d rather look like a real human without any uncanny valley AI effects on your live streams and video meetings, you can turn it off. Click the system status icons near the clock on your taskbar (or press Windows key + A) to open the quick settings. Look for the Studio Effects tile, click it, and customize which AI webcam effects you want to use.

If you don’t see the Studio Effects tile, your PC doesn’t have access to this feature and you have nothing to disable or worry about.

Ditch the AI features in your web browser

Modern web browsers are full of AI features, including Gemini in Chrome, Copilot in Edge, and even local AI features in Firefox. Fortunately, modern web browsers make it easy to turn off said AI features (apart from Firefox, which buries the options). Here’s how in each browser:

Google Chrome

Click the three-dot menu > Settings, choose “AI innovations” in the sidebar, then control AI features from here. You won’t actually have the full Gemini assistant on your toolbar unless you choose to pay for a Google AI Pro plan, so the current Chrome AI experience is restrained.

Microsoft Edge

Click the three-dot menu > Settings, choose “AI innovations,” and turn off experimental features. To turn off the Copilot toolbar icon as well, head to Appearance > Copilot and sidebar > Copilot and turn off “Show Copilot button on the toolbar.”

Mozilla Firefox

You have to type about:config into the address bar and press Enter to access the advanced settings. Then, search for browser.ml and turn off settings like “browser.ml.chat.enabled” and “browser.ml.enable” (which are “machine learning” features). Mozilla doesn’t provide a complete list of AI settings, but you can find user-made lists like this one.

Get rid of AI in Google Search

If you’re searching Google and would rather not see AI Overviews, you can add -ai to the end of your search queries to prevent AI Overviews on a per-search basis. But if you want to permanently disable AI Overviews, I recommend the Hide Google AI Overviews browser extension. It’s the best solution I’ve found so far.

Using AI should be your choice

To be clear, I have nothing against AI tools. I experiment with AI all the time! (As a tech writer, how could I not?) But that doesn’t mean I want every app full of AI features, nor do I want AI features forced upon me.

I’ll choose the tools I want to use and when I want to use them. Don’t feel bad if you feel the same way!

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