A.I. Comes For Our Computers

Ok, forgive the hysteria in the headline. But two recent changes to common platforms have triggered a lot of questions from my clients about how to undo those un-asked for changes. The first is in Google Workspace (the business version of Gmail). When you go to compose a new email, the body of the message has a “Help me write” message, prompting you to use Google’s artificial intelligence to help write a first draft of your email. If you want to turn this off, follow these instructions to disable it in Gmail settings. So far I haven’t observed this feature coming to personal Gmail accounts, but I doubt that is far off.

The second change that has caused lots of annoyance is in Microsoft Word. When you open a new document you are prompted to “Select the icon or press Alt + i to draft with Copilot”. (For the moment this is only with the 365 subscription versions of Office.) If you ignore this and start typing it will disappear for the time being. If you want to permanently turn off Copilot in Word, go to File > Options > Copilot and uncheck the box for “Enable Copilot”.