I found an easy way to automatically keep AI out of my search results - and it works in nearly every browser
A new method allows users to exclude AI results from their search engine queries. By creating a custom search engine in various browsers, users can avoid AI-generated content. This approach addresses concerns about AI's environmental impact and accuracy in information retrieval.
- ▪Users can create a custom search engine to exclude AI results in most web browsers.
- ▪The method involves adding a specific URL and keyword to the browser's search settings.
- ▪This customization can help mitigate the environmental concerns associated with AI data centers.
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Story provenance
Source · retrieval · rights · ranking — open for full record
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Story provenance
Attribution is not the same as permission. This drawer separates discovery metadata, excerpts, WeSearch-generated summaries, reuse status, and whether the publisher receives the visit. Nothing here claims a legal grant the publisher has not made.
Record
| Original publisher | ZDNet |
| Canonical URL | https://www.zdnet.com/article/easy-way-to-exclude-ai-from-search-results-in-every-browser/ |
| Publication time | Wed, 27 May 2026 16:58:18 GMT |
| Retrieval time | 2026-05-27T17:03:01.940Z |
| Last seen | 2026-05-27T17:03:01.940Z |
| Headline source | Publisher (no WeSearch rewrite) |
| Excerpt source | publisher body |
| Excerpt method | First ~120 words (~800 chars) of extracted publisher body, fair-use limited. |
| Summary | WeSearch · cerebras-chat (WeSearch summarizer) |
| Summary source text | contentText |
| Citation coverage | Summary is a WeSearch-generated derivative; primary citation is the original publisher URL. |
| Cluster | SLBv5yeMlQKw |
| Cluster logic | Grouped by semantic title/content similarity across sources within a rolling window. Same-publisher template collisions are excluded from coverage comparison. |
| Ranking reason | Story pages are not engagement-ranked. Hub feeds use recency, with optional source-diversified chronological ordering (cap consecutive stories per source). No personalized ranking. |
| Publisher visit | Yes — open original |
| Substitutes article? | No — link-out required for full text |
Rights status (four layers)
WeSearch handling by dimension
| Indexing | May the item be indexed (stored, ranked, made findable)? | Allowed |
| Snippet | May a short excerpt of the publisher's text be shown? | Allowed |
| AI summary | May WeSearch generate its own short summary of the article? | Limited |
| Retrieval / RAG | May the content be exposed for third-party retrieval-augmented generation? | Not asserted |
| Model training | May the content be used to train AI models? | Not asserted |
| Commercial reuse | May the content be reused commercially? | Not permitted |
Basis: Derived from the published RSS/Atom feed. Contact: [email protected]. Reviewed: 2026-07-24.
Opening excerpt (first ~120 words) tap to expand
Innovation Home Innovation Artificial Intelligence I found an easy way to automatically keep AI out of my search results - and it works in nearly every browser You can add a custom search engine in your browser that excludes all AI results. I'll show you how to do it in every major browser. Written by Jack Wallen, Contributing WriterContributing Writer May 27, 2026 at 9:58 a.m. PT Jack Wallen/ZDNETZDNET key takeawaysIf you're tired of AI results in your search engines, try this.All you have to do is add a custom search engine.This can be done in most web browsers.Over the past year, AI has infiltrated so many aspects of our lives.
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Excerpt limited to ~120 words for fair-use compliance. The full article is at ZDNet.