Google Caves, Lets People Search Google Photos Without AI — Here's How To Use It

Google caves, lets people search Google Photos without AI — here’s how to use it

Last updated: 2026/03/10 at 6:40 PM

News Room Published 10 March 2026

AI has been an integrated part of Google Photos since 2024, but user feedback — read backlash — made Google tone down its AI features and let people opt out more easily. Now, the company has added a new quick toggle that lets you easily swap between the AI-powered Ask Photos experience and the classic search.

The toggle was announced by Photos head Shimrit Ben-Yair on X.

“We’re starting to roll out a new experience that puts you in the driver’s seat, letting you choose between fast classic search and intelligent Ask Photos results,” Ben-Yair wrote. “We’ll lead with the results that best fit your query, but you always have the control to switch views to help you find exactly what you need.”

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We’ve heard your feedback that you want more control over the type of results you see when searching in Google Photos. To address this, we’re starting to roll out a new experience that puts you in the driver’s seat, letting you choose between fast classic search and intelligent… pic.twitter.com/XjPIkHn6sq March 9, 2026

Ask Photos initially began rolling out in September 2024 as an experimental feature powered by Google’s Gemini AI models. It was meant to contextually understand what was going on in your photos and find images based on conversational prompts.

However, the rollout was paused due to user criticism concerning latency, quality and the overall experience. Eventually, Ask Photos made its way back last summer.

The wider rollout brought back a “classic search” option, simplified the UI and even allowed you to turn off Ask Photos.

This new version seems to finally find a compromise with the ability to quickly switch between classic and Ask Photos without turning it off completely.

As with all Google rollouts, you may not immediately get the feature update. If you’re not seeing it wait a week or so and check for updates again.

If you do have it, you should see the toggle in the search UI. Ben-Yair also said that the “most popular searches” should be improved.

I’m in the process of transferring between an older Galaxy S22 and the new Galaxy S26 Ultra, but have yet to see the toggle go live on either device. Let me know if you’ve seen the toggle and how it’s working for you.