The Cluttered Canvas
Google Docs is increasingly incorporating AI to “help” users write faster. One of these features is action suggestions. If you type something that looks like a task, such as “Schedule a meeting with John,” Docs might automatically underline the text and display a popup suggesting you insert a “Smart Chip” or create a calendar event right there in the document. While this integration is useful for project management documents, it is incredibly distracting if you are writing a novel, a script, or a formal essay, as the constant popups and underlines break your concentration and clutter the visual space of your writing canvas.
Disabling Action Suggestions
To maintain a clean, distraction-free writing environment and stop Google Docs from automatically suggesting actions or prompting you to insert Smart Chips based on your text, you must disable the feature in the application preferences.
Open your Google Docs document. In the top menu bar, click on Tools, then select Preferences from the dropdown menu. A dialogue box will appear on your screen. Navigate to the General tab if it doesn’t open there by default. Look down the list of options for a checkbox labeled Suggest actions. If this box is checked, Docs is actively scanning your text to offer calendar events and tasks. Click the checkbox to uncheck it. Finally, click the blue OK button to save your changes. Google Docs will instantly stop analyzing your sentences for actionable items, allowing you to type without interruption.