As you type a document in Google Docs, you will frequently notice faint, grey text appearing ahead of your cursor, attempting to guess the rest of your sentence. This feature, known as Smart Compose, uses machine learning to predict what you are going to say next. You can press the Tab key to accept the suggestion and save a few keystrokes. However, many writers find these constant, flickering suggestions highly distracting, arguing that it disrupts their natural thought process and pushes them toward generic phrasing. If you find Smart Compose more annoying than helpful, you can turn it off entirely.
How to Disable Smart Compose
Disabling this feature in Google Docs will apply to your entire Google Account on the web, meaning it will stop suggesting words across all your documents.
- Open any document in Google Docs using your web browser.
- Look at the main menu bar at the very top of the screen and click on Tools.
- Scroll down the drop-down menu and click on Preferences.
- A new “Preferences” dialogue box will appear in the centre of your screen. Ensure you are looking at the General tab.
- Look down the list of checkboxes for an option labelled Show Smart Compose suggestions.
- Click the checkbox to uncheck it.
- Click the blue OK button at the bottom right to save your changes.
A Note on Gmail
Smart Compose is heavily integrated across Google’s ecosystem. While the steps above turn it off for Google Docs, it will likely still be active when you draft emails in Gmail.
To turn it off there as well, open Gmail, click the Gear icon (Settings), select “See all settings”, scroll down the General tab until you find “Smart Compose”, and select “Writing suggestions off”.