On November 11, 2026, Microsoft published a post on its Bing Search Blog setting out two ways to search Bing without AI-generated answers: a browser extension for Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge with a single on-off toggle, and a "-ai" operator that can be added to any query. The post, titled "Your choice: Turn AI answers on or off in Bing" and dated November 11, 2026, also states that installing the extension makes Bing the browser's default search engine.

Neither tool is new. PPC Land reported the extension on June 6, 2026, after Microsoft executive Jordi Ribas announced it on LinkedIn and described the -ai operator in comments under his post. Five months later the extension still carries a preview label. What changed on November 11 is the venue: Microsoft has now documented both options on its official search blog, under the tags AI, Bing and extension.

In Short

Microsoft has published an official guide to switching off AI answers in Bing, either with a one-click toggle in a Chrome and Edge extension or by adding -ai to a search. Both tools first appeared in June, and the extension, still a preview, also makes Bing the default search engine in the browser where it is installed. Microsoft says nothing about what happens to ads, Copilot or publisher links when AI answers are switched off, so the effect on advertisers and publishers remains unknown.

Two switches, one blog post

The post is short. Microsoft lists it as a two-minute read, and it describes the two options under the heading "Two ways to search without AI answers on Bing."

The first is the Microsoft Bing AI Search Choice extension, marked "(preview)." Once it is installed, a single toggle decides whether AI-generated answers appear on Bing, according to the post. Microsoft describes the two positions in plain terms: "Turn it on for fast, helpful summaries, or switch it off to focus on familiar search results and links." The setting applies across all Bing searches rather than to a single session, according to the post. It links to listings on the Chrome Web Store and the Microsoft Edge Add-ons site.

A screenshot in the post shows the extension's panel open over a Bing results page, with a Bing logo, a "PREVIEW" badge and one control labelled "Enable AI Features." The description under the label reads "Allow AI summaries and other features in Bing results." The post does not say what the "other features" are. In the screenshot, the toggle sits in the off position.

The second option is the -ai operator. "Bing also offers an option that doesn't require installing anything," the post states. "Simply add -ai to any Bing search to get results without AI-generated answers." Microsoft's example query is "why is the sky blue -ai." Unlike the extension, the operator works one search at a time, and it involves no change to browser settings.

A minus sign in front of a word has long served as an exclusion operator in web search. The post does not say whether "-ai" also filters out pages that contain the word "AI," or whether Bing now reads those two characters only as a request to suppress the AI answer. For marketers who research AI topics on Bing, that distinction is not trivial, and Microsoft has not addressed it.

Microsoft's rationale rests on research it does not publish. "AI is doing powerful things for search, and our research shows users want to have the option to choose whether or not AI is involved in every session," the post states. No sample size, method, market or date accompanies the claim. The company frames the controls as a matter of preference rather than retreat: "We're proud of the AI experiences we're building in Bing," the post states, adding that being able to turn AI answers off "isn't a step back from AI."

Five months in preview

The history matters because the post presents both tools without mentioning that they have been available since June. When PPC Land checked the store listings in early June, the Chrome version was 1.0.0.3 and showed six users, while the Edge version was 1.0.0.2, last updated on June 4, 2026. Both listings disclosed no collection of user data. The November 11 post gives no install count, no version number and no date for leaving preview.

Bing's relationship with an AI switch also predates the extension. In May 2024, when Google offered no built-in way to switch off its AI summaries, PPC Land noted that Bing let users turn off its Copilot responses. By June 2026, PPC Land's survey of AI controls on ten search engines described that settings-level control as removed during 2025. The extension and the operator now fill that gap.

The post closes with a request for feedback. Microsoft writes that because the extension is in preview, "we may make changes," and it directs readers to Bing's account on X.

The default search engine clause

One sentence in the post carries most of the commercial weight. "The extension is available for Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge, and it also sets Bing as your default search engine," it reads.

On Edge, Microsoft's own browser, the change matters less. On Chrome, it means that a user who installs the extension to control AI answers on Bing also moves the browser's search box away from Google. PPC Land's June report found that the Chrome version also opened Bing on every new tab, and that the toggle and the default-engine change came as a package with no option to separate them. The blog post does not mention the new-tab behaviour, and it does not say whether the bundling has changed.

The arithmetic explains why the clause matters to Microsoft. Bing's US search share peaked at 5.33% in December 2025 before falling to between 3.2% and 3.8% in early 2026, according to Datos figures reported by PPC Land in June. In Europe, the same data showed 4.12% in December and between 2.5% and 3.0% afterwards. Each Chrome installation, then, is a potential searcher moved from Google to Bing, and with that searcher come queries that can carry Microsoft Advertising inventory.

Whether that shows up in Microsoft's accounts will be hard to tell. For the quarter to September 30, 2026, Microsoft's search and advertising revenue rose 10% to $6.55bn, with growth excluding traffic acquisition costs of 12%, but the line now includes LinkedIn Marketing Solutions alongside Bing, Edge and MSN. Microsoft no longer publishes a standalone growth rate for search.

What the post leaves out: ads and Copilot

The word "ads" does not appear in the post. Neither does "Copilot."

Both absences matter to advertisers, because Microsoft sells ad placements inside its AI experiences. In August 2025, PPC Land covered Microsoft research that found ads in Copilot drew a 73% higher click-through rate than traditional search ads, with 16% stronger conversion rates, based on data from November 2024 to May 2025. When AI Max reached every Microsoft Advertising account worldwide in August 2026, Microsoft's Navah Hopkins presented its search term matching as a way to reach conversational queries, singling out AI experiences on Bing and Copilot.

A user who switches AI answers off removes those AI surfaces from the page. What happens to the ads that would have appeared in or around them? The post does not say. Nor does it say whether conventional search ads remain unchanged when the toggle is off, whether ad load differs between the two modes, or whether advertisers will be able to see how much of their traffic comes from searches with AI answers disabled.

The Copilot question is equally open. Microsoft launched Copilot Search in Bing on April 4, 2025 as a hybrid of conventional search and AI summaries, with sentence-level citations and source links at the top and bottom of the page. Microsoft's new post speaks only of "AI-generated answers" and "AI features in Bing." It does not say whether the toggle hides Copilot Search, entry points into Copilot, or only the summary block on a standard results page. Nor does it name markets, languages, mobile apps or whether the preference depends on a signed-in Microsoft account.

For publishers, the off position is the more interesting one. Microsoft describes it as a way "to focus on familiar search results and links," which is the format that sends readers to websites.

Microsoft's own numbers suggest how large the gap can be. A public court filing in the news publishers' copyright case against OpenAI and Microsoft, made on September 17, 2026, cited representative Microsoft data on the difference in click-through rates between Bing Chat and Bing web search. The reduction was 87% to 93% for The New York Times's sites, 83% to 91% for Daily News titles and 51% to 94% for Ziff Davis sites, as PPC Land reported on September 20. Those figures compare a chat product with web search, not a results page with and without an AI summary, so they cannot be read as a forecast for the toggle. They do show that Microsoft has measured the cost of AI answers to publisher clicks, and that the cost was large.

The toggle also touches Microsoft's reporting to site owners. Bing builds its AI answers through grounding, retrieving web pages to support a generated response, and in May 2026 Microsoft explained how its index serves that task differently from ranking. Bing Webmaster Tools now reports how often sites are cited in those answers, and in October it began listing queries where rivals are cited and a site is not. Searches run with AI answers off would, on Microsoft's own description, produce no AI answer to cite from. Microsoft has not said how many searches run that way, a figure that would put those citation reports in context.

The control also sits with a different party than Google's. Google gave site owners a Search Console toggle in July 2026 to exclude their content from AI Overviews and AI Mode, a change that followed the UK competition regulator's first binding order in June. Bing's switch belongs to the searcher. A publisher has no say over whether a given Bing user sees an AI answer built from its pages, and Microsoft has not said whether site owners will be able to see how often that choice is made.

Google and DuckDuckGo

The comparison with Google is the obvious one, and Microsoft's post does not draw it. As of June, Google offered no native setting for users to disable AI Overviews or AI Mode, according to PPC Land's survey, which documented workarounds such as the "Web" results filter and the udm=14 URL parameter. On the advertising side, advertisers in ten more countries cannot opt out of AI Mode ads separately from Search, following an expansion Google announced on October 28, 2026.

Demand for AI-free search has been measurable elsewhere. After Google I/O in May, DuckDuckGo reported that its US app installs grew 18% week on week on average over six days, with Apptopia recording a 29% rise in average daily US downloads. Visits to DuckDuckGo's no-AI search page rose 23% week on week over the same period. Its chief executive, Gabriel Weinberg, accused Google of pushing AI on users with no way to opt out.

That backdrop explains Microsoft's positioning. The company presents the off switch as consistent with its AI plans rather than a retreat from them, and the same extension doubles as a route to default status on Chrome. Whether many people use the switch is another matter. With zero-click search already reshaping the traffic publishers receive from every engine, the number Microsoft has not disclosed, how many Bing searches now run with AI answers turned off, is the one that would tell advertisers and publishers whether the November 11 post changes anything.

Timeline

Summary

Who: Microsoft, through its Bing Search Blog. The changes affect Bing users on Chrome and Edge, Microsoft Advertising customers whose ads run on Bing and in its AI answers, and publishers whose pages are cited in or linked from Bing results.

What: Microsoft documented two ways to search Bing without AI-generated answers: the Microsoft Bing AI Search Choice extension, a preview with a single toggle that also sets Bing as the browser's default search engine, and the -ai operator, which removes AI answers from one query. Both first appeared in June 2026. The post does not address ads, Copilot, markets or usage.

When: November 11, 2026, five months after the extension and the operator first surfaced in June 2026.

Where: On Bing, through extensions listed on the Chrome Web Store and the Microsoft Edge Add-ons site. The post names no specific markets.

Why: Microsoft says its research shows users want to choose whether AI is involved in each search session, without publishing that research. For advertisers and publishers, the controls raise unanswered questions about ad placement in AI-off mode, Copilot surfaces and citation reporting, while the default-engine setting gives Microsoft a route to move Chrome users from Google to Bing.