The Annoyance of Predictive AI
Google Docs features two predictive AI tools designed to speed up your writing: Smart Compose and Smart Reply. Smart Compose actively monitors your typing and suggests the rest of your sentence in light grey text, which you can accept by pressing the Tab key. Smart Reply suggests quick, automated responses (like “Sounds good!” or “Thanks!”) when you are tagged in a document comment. While these features are intended to save time, they can heavily disrupt the creative flow of authors, copywriters, and academics. If you find the grey ghost text distracting, or if you prefer to write your own thoughtful replies to editor comments, you can permanently disable these AI features.
How to Turn Off Smart Compose
The predictive sentence completion feature is managed in the main Tools menu.
- Open a document in Google Docs on your web browser.
- Click on Tools in the top menu bar.
- Select Preferences from the dropdown menu.
- In the Preferences dialog box, ensure you are on the General tab.
- Locate the checkbox labeled “Show Smart Compose suggestions”.
- Uncheck the box.
- Click the blue OK button to save.
The grey predictive text will no longer appear ahead of your cursor as you type.
How to Turn Off Smart Reply
The automated comment responses are managed in the exact same menu.
- Click on Tools in the top menu bar again.
- Select Preferences.
- In the General tab, look slightly further down the list for the checkbox labeled “Show Smart Reply suggestions”.
- Uncheck the box.
- Click OK.
When colleagues highlight text and tag you in a comment, you will now see a clean, empty text box rather than a row of pre-written, robotic responses. Both of these settings are saved to your Google account, meaning they will apply to all future documents you create or edit.