Microsoft Bing now lets searchers turn off Copilot AI answers on their own terms. The company announced on June 8 two separate mechanisms for suppressing its generative answer layer: a browser extension that works with Chrome and Edge, and a “-ai” query operator that can be appended to any search string.
The two controls are meaningfully different in practice. The browser extension acts as a persistent toggle. Once installed, every Bing search defaults to the classic link-based result set with no AI answer appearing. The “-ai” operator is surgical: it works query by query, requires no installation, and allows users to mix AI-on and AI-off searches within a single session. A researcher who wants generative summaries for broad questions but raw links for precise navigational queries can do both without switching modes.
Search Engine Roundtable reported the announcement, sourcing it directly from Microsoft Bing.
The move is notable against the backdrop of what Bing has been building. Microsoft has been expanding its AI layer steadily: Copilot answers, AI-grouped image results, and a Web IQ layer designed to serve AI agents rather than human browsers. Offering an explicit opt-out in the middle of that expansion says something about the underlying satisfaction data. When a platform builds a visible exit from its own flagship AI feature, it concedes that a portion of its audience is not converting on the generated experience. The opt-out does not prove AI answers are failing; it proves Microsoft knows enough about user behavior to offer the valve.
The contrast with Google is instructive. Google offers controls that limit AI Overviews in certain contexts and has settings that affect personalization, but there is no single per-query operator in Google Search that strips the generative layer the way “-ai” works in Bing. Google’s AI-feature controls operate at the account or browser level, not at the individual query level. Bing’s approach gives users a text-based escape hatch that works without a signed-in account or a settings panel.
For publishers, the opt-out introduces a measurement challenge. Bing referral traffic will now contain at least two behaviorally distinct audiences: users staying inside the Copilot answer flow, where clicks to websites are suppressed by the generative response, and users who have toggled AI off and are interacting with a classic SERP where organic links are the primary interface. Microsoft has previously acknowledged that AI search reduces clicks to external sites. If opt-out adoption is material, the users reverting to blue links should produce a higher click-through rate on organic results than the AI-on cohort. Publishers who segment Bing traffic by landing-page source and monitor session depth may be able to detect this split in their analytics, even without Bing disclosing opt-out adoption rates.
The announcement does not include any data on how many users are expected to use the opt-out, nor does Microsoft Bing disclose what share of Bing queries currently trigger a Copilot answer. The signal is structural: a search engine handing users a volume knob for its AI layer is positioning itself as the privacy-respecting, user-controlled alternative at a moment when AI answer fatigue is a real and documented user complaint.
Publishers with material Bing referral traffic should instrument Bing as a separate channel in their analytics now, before opt-out adoption scales, so they have a clean baseline against which to measure any click-through shift in the months ahead.
Source: Search Engine Roundtable, June 8 2026, citing a Microsoft Bing announcement.
