The Distracting Action Items
Google Docs is increasingly incorporating smart features to help teams collaborate. One of these is the automatic “Action Items” generator. As you type a document, Docs scans your text using natural language processing. If you type a phrase that sounds like a task—for example, “Sarah needs to finish the report by Friday”—Docs will frequently highlight the text and pop up a suggestion box, prompting you to formally assign it as an Action Item to a specific Google account.
While this is useful for project managers tracking team deliverables, it is incredibly annoying for anyone simply writing a story, a standard memo, or transcribing meeting notes without wanting to trigger formal Google Workspace task assignments. Having the software constantly interrupt your writing flow with popup boxes because you used the phrase “needs to do” is frustrating. If you want to write in peace without AI interference, you should disable this feature.
How to Stop Automatic Action Item Suggestions
You can disable the AI task detection within the Preferences menu.
- Open a document in Google Docs.
- Look at the top toolbar and click on Tools.
- Select Preferences from the dropdown menu.
- In the Preferences window, ensure you are on the General tab.
- Look down the list of checkboxes for the options related to smart suggestions.
- Locate the checkbox labelled Show suggested action items.
- Click the checkbox to remove the checkmark.
- Click the blue OK button to save your changes.
The natural language processor will stop scanning your sentences for tasks. You can still manually create Action Items by typing an @ symbol followed by a colleague’s name, but Docs will no longer aggressively suggest them while you are typing.